With two consultancy engagements won this month and growing interest from the
public sector, AMTEC Consulting is reporting a sharp upturn in requirements for
its skills in business process improvement, particularly in Lean and Six Sigma.
"Pressure on resources and demands for greater efficiency, against a backdrop
of rising expectations for improved services, are the chief reasons why many
organisations are now considering these business improvement tools and
techniques", says Mark Edmonds, Principal Consultant in AMTEC's Business
Performance practice.
"Lean Working is all about improving services through more efficient delivery,
by reducing or eliminating 'process waste' - only producing what is needed, when
it is needed, with the minimum amount of materials, equipment, labour and space.
Lean is well-proven in the private sector and we are now starting to see similar
results in the public sector,"; he adds.
In the first recent engagement, AMTEC's lean expertise will be deployed at an
MOD agency to support a major business transformation programme. Working with
customers and internal stakeholders, AMTEC is modelling the 'end-to-end'
business processes in the agency's operations division to achieve significant
business improvement through adoption of the Lean Sigma toolkit.
The second engagement centres on driving improvements and efficiencies in the
procurement and contracting function of a Government agency. Against an
increasingly tight budget position, the agency conducted an internal review,
which concluded that there may be opportunities for more efficient process
improvement. Through this pilot exercise AMTEC is introducing the lean
principles and transferring skills to staff, who will be seeking to replicate
the benefits across other areas of the organisation.
AMTEC Consulting's team of business process experts are trained and qualified
in implementing lean tools and techniques and also bring expertise in related
areas, such as business transformation, performance management and improvement.
The team is deployed across central government, local government, health and
defence sectors.
To find out how we can help you to achieve sustainable performance
improvement, please contact Mark Edmonds, Principal Consultant at AMTEC
Consulting.
Lean is a set of tools and techniques designed to reduce and
eliminate waste or non-value added activity in any given process and across any
given sector. The fundamental aim is to provide a way to do more with less,
while coming closer to providing customers or users with exactly what they want.
An important distinction is that lean focuses on creating value and capacity
rather than eliminating jobs in the name of efficiency.
Six sigma is a measure of quality that strives for near
perfection, adopting a data-driven approach that systematically eliminates
defects. Unlike lean systems, six sigma has only been in existence for about 10
years. There are two methodologies: Improvement of existing processes (looking
for incremental improvement) and development of new processes or products.