At the height of the Covid-19 crisis, institutions worldwide were implementing hygiene and sanitation protocols at an unprecedented level. As a global manufacturer of commercial and industrial cleaning equipment, Nilfisk had a unique opportunity to capitalize on the needs of schools, hospitals and other public spaces for advanced cleaning systems that would meet new cleaning standards.
At the same time, however, Nilfisk was experiencing many of the supply chain challenges and labor shortages as other manufacturing businesses. On top of that, the company’s distribution center in Arkansas was hit by an EF-3 tornado in March 2022, destroying most of the component parts stored there.
Faced with these challenges, our strategy to retain current customers – and also take advantage of a potentially growing market – has been to transform our manufacturing processes in several critical ways that require significant investment. The result? A stronger, more resilient business than we ever could have imagined had these disruptions never occurred.
Define the problem
Manufacturing disruptions like those caused by COVID and the tornado were not only setbacks in and of themselves, but also they exacerbated operational issues that had existed for many years. At Nilfisk, my role was created to examine the impact of these operational issues, the effects of the many supply chain disruptions, and the overall “health” of our operations in the Americas.
"Faced with these challenges, our strategy to retain current customers – and also take advantage of a potentially growing market – has been to transform our manufacturing processes in several critical ways that require significant investment"
For example, one of the challenges we identified and continue to face is a backlog of orders. While it would be relatively easy to blame that on supply chain shortages caused by COVID, we decided to dig deeper into the problem to truly understand all the factors contributing to our growing backlog.
Only by clearly defining the problem – and not making assumptions – could we begin to address it.
Measure current state
The first step in solving the problem was to benchmark the current state. In other words, what was getting done, by whom, on what timeline? What production goals were set for various machines, parts and kits, and were we meeting those? Did the goals match the changing needs of our customers?
We also collected data on our process flows, procurement practices, safety stocks, warehouse and distribution inventories, etc.
Bring together the right team
Although there is a tendency to maintain a consistent staff for the sake of stability, last year we decided it was in everyone’s best interest to make some strategic staffing changes aligned with the new and improved processes we needed to establish, as well as to prepare us for growth. As a result, now when we make operational changes, we can do so confidently, knowing we have the right people in place to successfully follow through on implementation.
Analyze the data
As we continue to collect data, we turn to our employees to help with analysis. We ask:
• Do we agree that this is the current process for X?
• If not, let’s document it correctly
• Is it working? If not, why not?
• How important is this process in meeting our goals?
• How can we improve the current process to make our work more efficient, more satisfying, and better meet our goals?
Through extensive discussions with staff at all levels, including surveys, in-person site visits, calls and videoconferences, as well as discussions with third-party resources, we are documenting specific issues that could be contributing to not only the backlog but also other operational inefficiencies.
In the case of backlog, we discovered that the problem was complex and included multiple factors such as:
• Lack of alignment between global and regional functions
• Insufficient parts inventory or, more accurately, insufficient right parts inventory
• Imbalance in shifts and personnel needed for workflow on various lines (i.e., some areas were keeping up, but some were not)
• Sub-optimal match of some employees to their roles (i.e., wrong people in the wrong places)
• Inefficient systems and processes
Throughout the analysis phase, it’s important to “read back” what we are finding so that employees know they are being heard and can see the interconnectedness of all facets of the business.
Prioritize improvements
In order to decide which operational improvements to implement first, we weigh them based on:
• Frequency – how often a problem is occurring
• Impact – how much of a difference it is making in meeting goals and impacting customers
• Ease/Speed to solve – how long it would take to fix
While frequency and impact are certainly important criteria, “quick wins” build confidence and trust that the organization is committed to making meaningful changes that benefit employees.
Put measures in place for sustainability
To prevent backsliding and maintain our operational improvements, Nilfisk is working to establish controls and measures in all we do. These include written and accurate SOPs, appointing people accountable for those SOPs, putting the right people in the right positions, better warehouse signage to make inventory management more accurate, and even splitting formerly combined positions (e.g., receiver, unloader, put-away and picker) to provide more quality checkpoints.
Create a review cadence
Finally, we are establishing a review system to make sure operational changes continue to be implemented consistently and to track results relative to KPIs. Over time, new processes will become routine, and we will be able to reduce the cadence of reviews for each process to, for example, every month instead of every two weeks. In summary, the COVID crisis has forced a lot of businesses to change how they operate. The tornado hitting our distribution center forced us to do the same. At Nilfisk, we now firmly believe both were catalysts for us to take a hard look at our operations, invest in meaningful transformation, and be better prepared for the future and to serve customers.
