Building Better Businesses

We apply ILS System™ to identify and implement structural and operational improvements in your supply chain and distribution systems. ILS System™ is a structured process for working with clients that starts by creating a clear future state vision of what a lean supply chain and distribution system would look like in your business and what it would accomplish. The future state is then implemented through a special engagement process with your people that results in fast transformation, strong learning, exceptional results, and change that sticks. See Our Approach for more information.

The advances we create together will be designed to meet your unique needs. They address areas such as:

We work with our clients through a structured approach that we call ILS System™.

ILS System™ begins with a site visit and discussion about your needs. We then conduct a detailed assessment of your current state. In the case of supply chain and distribution, frequently map current state processes to identify system-level waste and opportunities for value creation. Operations are carefully observed with a trained eye to identify all forms of waste. Historical performance data and time measurements may be gathered. Through our learning and experience with many clients, we have developed lean models for distribution operations (see What We Do) and various aspects of supply chain structure that we contrast with your current state to help in identifying improvement opportunities. On the basis of this information, we synthesize an achievable future state design that promises high performance gains, quantifying what those gains should be, in terms such as improvement in productivity measures such as lines per hour, reduced lead times, reduction of logistics costs, etc.

As part of the assessment process, we consider your internal skill sets and resources; training needs needed to support, sustain, and build upon the improvements; and the urgency for making them. This helps us develop an effective plan of action and select the best engagement models to use in implementing the future state.

An ILS Engagement Leader is assigned to your company. Working closely with key leaders and influences throughout the company, we prioritize and schedule critical improvement activities and identify leaders and teams for executing them.

Following ILS System™, we execute the projects through a form of highly effective operational improvement workshops called bootcamps. We carefully prep for bootcamps, completing the activities necessary to ensure rapid and effective operational restructuring during the bootcamp event, which typically lasts from 2-4 days. This might involve gathering data, conducting analyses, lining up resources, light fabrication, installing storage units, etc. During the bootcamp, your teams learn the principles, practices, tools, techniques, and underlying theories behind everything we do. They then design, pilot, implement, problem-solve, and confirm the effectiveness of the improvement projects. The days are long and the work is intense. But by teaching the participants, they understand, contribute to, and enthusiastically support the change. We set high goals and objectives and push the teams to achieve better outcomes than they believed were possible.

Other engagement models -€“ e.g., value stream design workshops or IT improvement workshops -€“ are employed depending on the projects and your needs. In all cases, we insure that everyone learns and can effectively support the future state system they create.

Once future state operations are in place, we typically follow through with an important component of ILS System™, the implementation of an effective lean daily management system that insure effective deployment of personnel, real time visibility of problems, and rapid and effective resolution.

It is often the case in Supply Chain and distribution projects that ILS will conduct special analyses and develop special tools for routine use in your operations as part of your future state process. Examples include:

Distribution Example 1. This large distribution center had a sophisticated WMS, hardware, and infrastructure, including flow rack presentation systems for each picking, voice pick, pick to light, conveyance/diverter systems used for carton flow control and sorting, and a sort lane system where cartons arrive for final pallet build. Wave picking was deployed in an effort to gain full carton pick efficiencies so that picks from common locations could be batched across orders.