Enhancing Synergy and Efficiency

Challenge

A global energy company with industrial and commercial operations spanning five continents struggled to adopt operations management best practices at one of their North America chemical plants. With a recent restructure of middle management, unpredictable energy prices and inconsistent market demands, these recent changes caused a waterfall effect, breaking down alignment in the organization.

KPIs were unclear across management, and as a result, the operations team felt they did not have the autonomy to hit their safety and operational targets. Measuring performance rapidly became difficult with the organization, and the instability threatened production growth. With mounting concerns and facing hurdles ahead, pressure developed within management to seek guidance outside of their organization Leadership enlisted dss⁺ to develop a comprehensive framework to address these issues and outline a path forward.

dss⁺ Approach

dss⁺ began by assessing the local implementation of the company’s management operating system (MOS) to identify gaps and opportunities among their three main departments. The site KPI reporting structure and meeting effectiveness were also evaluated to track the current strengths and the potential for improvement of key meetings at all levels. dss⁺ then consolidated its findings to develop develop a detailed Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed (RACI) chart and improved Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs, and Customers (SIPOC) diagrams. Both served as a framework to first identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies, and then develop a comprehensive process for sustainable improvement.

Part of the new proposed framework was a new KPI tree that would monitor and assess performance against set objectives, which would ultimately foster data-driven decision making. dss⁺ also delivered tailored recommendations on how to improve the structure and cadence of internal meetings.

Assignment

Align both key processes and the company’s operating system to focus on performance.

Offering

Operational Excellence (OpEX)

Impact

• More than 50 employees were trained in five new modules of the company’s MOS: Introduction to MOS, Meeting Effectiveness, Short Interval Control, Production Loss Accounting System, and Holding Performance Dialogue.
• A roadmap was developed to implement 28 improvement initiatives across three main processes: production, environmental compliance, and maintenance work order life cycle.
• dss⁺ leveraged RACI clarity to unlock future potential of employees, closing process gaps.
• Meetings were refocused by using highimpact KPIs to drive daily and weekly performance.