Mark Crawford10.12.10
The Partnership Treadmill
Establishing best practices in an outsourcing relationship is an ongoing process that keeps both sides running.
Contributing Writer
Communication and commitment to quality are among the ingredients to establishing best practices among OEMs and other customers.
There is zero room for guesswork and assumptions can be fatal to any relationship, even well-established ones. Suppliers must commit the time, personnel and financial resources necessary to truly understand the OEM, its mission, products, and—ultimately—its psyche. They must have the technical expertise to deliver what OEMs require and be flexible enough to quickly adjust to their changing needs. For a prosperous relationship, suppliers perhaps must know more about the OEM than the OEM knows about itself—and be able to provide solutions before they ask the questions.
“We must be committed to excellence in order to improve our products and services, as well as the processes that support them,” said Brian Nash, vice president of sales and marketing for NuSil Technology, a raw material manufacturer of silicones in Carpinteria, Calif. “These improvements are the result of the open lines of communication we maintain with our customers. It’s these relationships that allow us to construct procedures and systems that meet the needs of the broader customer base.”
While this certainly translates into responsiveness, Nash pointed out it also should result in proactive change. “NuSil doesn’t always want to wait for the customer to make a request, so we try to anticipate what the request will be,” he added. “This usually goes hand in hand with our own desire for continual process improvement.”
The key to establishing continual process improvement and best practices with any partner is being absolutely clear on what must be achieved. What is the goal, and how are you going to get there?
“At Ximedica we say ‘every project begins at the end,’” said Stephen Perez, vice president of quality for the design, engineering, and advanced manufacturing services provider in Providence, R.I. “We start with a clear image of what we are trying to accomplish and make sure our processes lead to that end. If they don’t, we make changes. Our goal could be something like, ‘clear internal processes that are both flexible and understandable to the average employee and client.’ Or it might be a very specific set of requirements for a product that we are developing. Start with as much definition as possible and then figure out how to operationalize those definitions through good metrics.”
Establishing Best Practices
The most effective best-practice behaviors are the result of a continual search for the approaches and processes that are the most efficient and productive—for all levels of the organization. Sometimes that means consulting with proven leaders in a particular field of operations and heeding their recommendations for what process works the best. It also involves education and training, including attending conferences and learning what other companies are doing. Companies that work across an industry as outsourcing providers often can pick up best practices from the various projects they manage for different clients and adapt them for specific customer needs.
“What works well for us is hiring experienced people who bring deep industry knowledge and a fresh perspective to our processes,” said Perez. “As a consultancy, we have been able to hire employees from a range of large, established OEMs and medical device companies and incorporate the best practice knowledge that they bring to our table. Another source of good learning for us is ensuring that employees with different types of training and background listen to and learn from each other.”
For example, Ximedica recently undertook an effort to completely rewrite its standard operating procedures (SOPs) to make them more flexible and more user-friendly.
“One of the core strengths of our company is usability, and we recognized that our SOPs could benefit from the same attention that we give to our clients’ products,” said Perez. “With that in mind, we assembled a rich group of employees who each brought their needs, specialties, and their experiences to the table. Together they created a highly usable set of SOPs that balanced comprehensiveness with flexibility, giving us a set of quality standards that allows us to work in full partnership with our clients and their quality standards.”
It’s essential that initial conversations between device companies and suppliers discuss their expectations regarding best practices.
“The process is driven by the supplier because it is the responsibility of the supplier to document the expectations and secure agreement with the client on best practices,” commented John Carey, vice president of the medical division for Foliage, a provider of custom product development and product strategy consulting in Burlington, Mass. “The period of time for establishing a best-practices approach on an engagement is typically driven by availability of key stakeholders on the client side, but it should only take a couple of weeks to reach agreement.”
Perez said his firm gets extremely specific about the responsibilities and deliverables with any supplier contract.
“Although it sounds obvious, it does take skill and awareness to write up a contract with no ambiguity,” he said. “We’ve gotten pretty good at it, and our clients have noticed and thanked us for that. We have an SOP that is highly specific about what the scope of an agreement includes. We make sure the responsibility for each deliverable is specified right down to the level of the actual person—and we have them sign off on that, whether it is on our side or on the client or supplier side. I know that putting ambiguity into a contract might seem desirable, but we have found in most cases that it is not.”
Once the contract and pricing models are established, the next step is identifying any gaps in best practices and focusing on filling needs in those areas. “This level of supplier preparation can accelerate the agreement process and demonstrate to the client that best practices are simply business as usual for the supplier,” said Carey.
It also can keep customers from inadvertently putting up hurdles that get in the way of achieving overall goals. “Sometimes customers ask for redundant systems and steps because a program or process is new to them,” said Jonathan Tillman, senior vice president for Millstone Medical Outsourcing, a provider of customized outsourcing solutions in Fall River, Mass. “For example, they might request an additional cleaning step or extra quality control measures that aren’t needed. As the outsource service provider, it is our job to eliminate unnecessary steps to develop a streamlined process that is cost-effective and complies with the highest standards
of quality.”
Tillman believes the most effective best practices are those that are related to more than just one segment of the business. “To be a best practice, a process or procedure has to cut across more than one aspect of a customer/vendor relationship,” he continued. “We try to apply best practices, from small- to large-scale ideas, in all areas of decision making. The end goal for us and our customers is to build a cost-effective, efficient, quality-controlled process that provides a win-win for both sides of the relationship.”
A recent example Tillman cited is a customer who approached the company with eight units to be packaged as a sterile kit. Their initial plan, which they believed would decrease validation costs and lead time, called for individually packaging each unit and collecting those units into a box.
“We recommended the alternative of moving to a double thermoform tray with all units packaged in the inner tray, sealed in a second tray, and then shipped in a box,” said Tillman. “At first, validation costs would be higher and lead times would be slightly longer, but the end result would be significant savings in time and material costs. In addition, the final package was easier to open and use at the surgical site and was also an environmentally friendly solution because it created less waste.”
Quality Builds Trust
The foundation for best practices is having world-class quality systems in place. “Our goal is to provide superior quality so that the parts of the process for which we are responsible don’t have to be repeated,” said Chris Ramsden, CEO for Millstone Medical Outsourcing. “For example, there are many instances in our industry where the manufacturer inspects, the outsourcing service provider inspects, and then the OEM inspects again. This creates inefficiency and costs time and money. By offering best-in-class inspection, as well as other services, we help our customers streamline processes and gain cost savings.”
Third-party certification is a quality requirement for most supplier relationships these days, but forward-thinking companies consider it only as a good starting point for continual process improvement. Relationships won’t last long if suppliers can’t stay on top of the latest developments in quality management, which can change quickly.
For example, even though NuSil Technology complies with ISO 9001, AS9100B, and select sections of ISO 13485 and 21 CFR Part 820 quality system regulations, “we continually review industry quality management programs and incorporate new elements from these programs when appropriate in order to keep pace with changing corporate and customer requirements,” said Nash. “Because we are a fully integrated silicone manufacturer, we can control any aspect of a product’s process and formulation to develop custom products that process and perform to customer specification. For our drug-delivery silicones we have dedicated clean room facilities for compounding with actives as well as in-house capabilities for performing content uniformity testing, extractions, elution studies, and shelf life stability studies. We also support all such products with drug master files.”
For other companies, although they may have well-documented processes in place that are typically ISO registered, the execution of those processes may be inefficient or flawed. All companies can benefit from periodic third-party assessments of their best practices.
“Our process assessments typically begin with a gap assessment measuring the client’s documented process against an established standard, such as IEC 62304 for software life cycle,” said Carey. “Once the gaps are known we will audit one or more recent programs completed by the client to determine how well the current process is used in practice.”
This type of independent assessment yields valuable feedback on how to improve compliance with current practices, improve weak aspects of the current process, and advance good practices to best practices. Clients can use the recommendations generated from the assessment engagements to target quality improvement initiatives and measure outcomes.
“An area that shows up fairly consistently is requirement capture and management,” said Carey. “It’s not unusual for a client to have very well-documented practices around requirements, but also have poor execution and high stakeholder dissatisfaction. A good example of how we might approach this problem is suggesting improvements for organization around requirements capture and tools designed for requirements management. Based on the initial assessment, we can typically quantify the amount of time that the current process takes to execute, establish improvement goals, and then track improvements once new practices and tools are in place.”
Building Partnerships, Not Relationships
More suppliers, vendors and outsourcers are reporting their OEMs want them to be more active as partners by providing additional services and being involved in the earliest stages of product development.
“They want to build a relationship and have the tools to be able to submit projects or drawings to us as if we were just another unit of their company, and be able to get immediate feedback on feasibility and price,” said Mike Adelstein, chief operating officer for Potomac Photonics, a microfabricator in Lanham, Md.
Potomac Photonics drives many of its best-practice activities with customer relationship management (CRM) software. “From the first contact we strive to be a partner in the project, not just a vendor,” he continued. “Initial meetings and phone calls usually include not only the salesperson but the lead engineer assigned to the project. We work together to understand the overall situation of the project, what problems they are having or anticipate having, the implications of the problems, and finally how we can provide them with a solution. An overall game plan is developed that includes a proposal for prototyping and a roadmap to production.We continually stay in contact with them throughout the process and keep track of all our conversations/obligations with our CRM software.”
Healthcare reform is creating tremendous pressure on OEMs to reduce costs. An important part of any best-practices partnership is sharing the responsibility to control costs, including joint lean initiatives to improve efficiencies and maximize production.
“This can’t be accomplished without both companies working together, pursuing a common goal,” said Jim Reed, vice president of sales and business development for Accellent Inc., a contract manufacturer in Wilmington, Mass. “Sure, some contract manufacturers simply decide to reduce prices on a year-over-year basis, but that business model is very short-sighted and sure to mark the demise of their ability to serve the marketplace. We are dedicated to continuous improvement programs and ongoing metrics. Accellent is also 100 percent committed to the ongoing training of key technical and program management skills while relentlessly pursuing technology development initiatives ahead of
product launch programs.”
Foliage has helped its clients move toward best practices in areas such as software life cycle, design history file, requirements management, and automated testing. “For example, we have a defined set of services that help our clients assess their current automated software test capabilities, develop a strategy to achieve best practices in this area, implement the strategy, and measure the outcomes through metrics and ROI [return on investment] analysis,” said Carey. “Automated test improvement is a good example because the up-front strategy typically requires an investment to achieve best practices and therefore can be measured with a defined ROI. This visibility enables all stakeholders to monitor the improvement against an expected return so it takes a technical process improvement and makes all stakeholders accountable for the success of the initiative.”
Benchmarking Improvement
Ensuring a process is the best it can be requires establishing goals and evaluating progress throughout the process using measurable metrics, such as delivery deadlines, quality controls, and throughput numbers. “At Millstone we regularly look for ways to streamline and enhance processes,” said Tillman. “We are constantly striving to get better and perform well above the average.”
“The most important element in building good manufacturing processes, next to clear goals, is having a good set of quality metrics,” agreed Perez. “Validating a process—devising it and testing it—makes sure that you are actually measuring what you set out to measure.”
Monitor the process continuously and be alert for abnormal or unusual results. Use as many appropriate tools as possible to measure the process and find areas of opportunity for improvement, including Six Sigma and Lean manufacturing principles.
“A valuable process we have employed is that of the ‘visual factory,’” said Perez. “We use visual representations of information and rely on this visualization to be able to immediately see where problems are occurring on the floor. We can monitor our process metrics in this manner.”
Having best practices in place and tracking metrics is pointless, Perez continued, if you don’t take the time to review how things are going and what lessons have been learned when progress has been made. “Are you checking your process against your goals or targets?” said Perez. “Are you meeting your goals? Take the time needed to review the process and the goals. Do you dedicate an individual to accomplish this, or a team? Would that individual or team be per company, or per project? Everyone on the team is responsible for best practices. Some teams like the manufacturing department have a dedicated responsibility and produce regular reports on output and progress towards goals. Other teams, the project teams, report on a regular basis as well.”
Is it Possible to Have Too Many Metrics?
“Definitely,” said Carey. “This is a fairly common problem because most people feel more information is better information.However, excess metrics only cloud the picture. The goal is to measure improvement so the objective of metrics should be to expose the degree of improvement with as few measures that tell the story. Unfortunately, it does take close examination to isolate and gain consensus on the most important indicators but, if executed well, this step can make all the difference. Once consensus is established on the key metric or metrics for measuring improvement, then all key stakeholders can get behind the improvement initiative, track improvement, and reward progress.”
Tillman said you will know you are managing best practices effectively when your customers actively engage you throughout the entire process.
“Whether it is packaging or loaner kit processing, you are developing a solution together, collaboratively,” he said. “That’s when you know you are viewed by your customer as a strategic partner.”
Mark Crawford is a full-time freelance business and marketing/communications writer based in Madison, Wis. His clients range from startups to global manufacturing leaders such as Kohler. He also writes a variety of feature articles for regional and national publications and is the author of five books. Contact him at mark.crawford@charter.net.
Establishing best practices in an outsourcing relationship is an ongoing process that keeps both sides running.
Contributing Writer
Communication and commitment to quality are among the ingredients to establishing best practices among OEMs and other customers.
There is zero room for guesswork and assumptions can be fatal to any relationship, even well-established ones. Suppliers must commit the time, personnel and financial resources necessary to truly understand the OEM, its mission, products, and—ultimately—its psyche. They must have the technical expertise to deliver what OEMs require and be flexible enough to quickly adjust to their changing needs. For a prosperous relationship, suppliers perhaps must know more about the OEM than the OEM knows about itself—and be able to provide solutions before they ask the questions.
“We must be committed to excellence in order to improve our products and services, as well as the processes that support them,” said Brian Nash, vice president of sales and marketing for NuSil Technology, a raw material manufacturer of silicones in Carpinteria, Calif. “These improvements are the result of the open lines of communication we maintain with our customers. It’s these relationships that allow us to construct procedures and systems that meet the needs of the broader customer base.”
While this certainly translates into responsiveness, Nash pointed out it also should result in proactive change. “NuSil doesn’t always want to wait for the customer to make a request, so we try to anticipate what the request will be,” he added. “This usually goes hand in hand with our own desire for continual process improvement.”
The key to establishing continual process improvement and best practices with any partner is being absolutely clear on what must be achieved. What is the goal, and how are you going to get there?
“At Ximedica we say ‘every project begins at the end,’” said Stephen Perez, vice president of quality for the design, engineering, and advanced manufacturing services provider in Providence, R.I. “We start with a clear image of what we are trying to accomplish and make sure our processes lead to that end. If they don’t, we make changes. Our goal could be something like, ‘clear internal processes that are both flexible and understandable to the average employee and client.’ Or it might be a very specific set of requirements for a product that we are developing. Start with as much definition as possible and then figure out how to operationalize those definitions through good metrics.”
Establishing Best Practices
The most effective best-practice behaviors are the result of a continual search for the approaches and processes that are the most efficient and productive—for all levels of the organization. Sometimes that means consulting with proven leaders in a particular field of operations and heeding their recommendations for what process works the best. It also involves education and training, including attending conferences and learning what other companies are doing. Companies that work across an industry as outsourcing providers often can pick up best practices from the various projects they manage for different clients and adapt them for specific customer needs.
“What works well for us is hiring experienced people who bring deep industry knowledge and a fresh perspective to our processes,” said Perez. “As a consultancy, we have been able to hire employees from a range of large, established OEMs and medical device companies and incorporate the best practice knowledge that they bring to our table. Another source of good learning for us is ensuring that employees with different types of training and background listen to and learn from each other.”
For example, Ximedica recently undertook an effort to completely rewrite its standard operating procedures (SOPs) to make them more flexible and more user-friendly.
“One of the core strengths of our company is usability, and we recognized that our SOPs could benefit from the same attention that we give to our clients’ products,” said Perez. “With that in mind, we assembled a rich group of employees who each brought their needs, specialties, and their experiences to the table. Together they created a highly usable set of SOPs that balanced comprehensiveness with flexibility, giving us a set of quality standards that allows us to work in full partnership with our clients and their quality standards.”
It’s essential that initial conversations between device companies and suppliers discuss their expectations regarding best practices.
“The process is driven by the supplier because it is the responsibility of the supplier to document the expectations and secure agreement with the client on best practices,” commented John Carey, vice president of the medical division for Foliage, a provider of custom product development and product strategy consulting in Burlington, Mass. “The period of time for establishing a best-practices approach on an engagement is typically driven by availability of key stakeholders on the client side, but it should only take a couple of weeks to reach agreement.”
Perez said his firm gets extremely specific about the responsibilities and deliverables with any supplier contract.
“Although it sounds obvious, it does take skill and awareness to write up a contract with no ambiguity,” he said. “We’ve gotten pretty good at it, and our clients have noticed and thanked us for that. We have an SOP that is highly specific about what the scope of an agreement includes. We make sure the responsibility for each deliverable is specified right down to the level of the actual person—and we have them sign off on that, whether it is on our side or on the client or supplier side. I know that putting ambiguity into a contract might seem desirable, but we have found in most cases that it is not.”
Once the contract and pricing models are established, the next step is identifying any gaps in best practices and focusing on filling needs in those areas. “This level of supplier preparation can accelerate the agreement process and demonstrate to the client that best practices are simply business as usual for the supplier,” said Carey.
It also can keep customers from inadvertently putting up hurdles that get in the way of achieving overall goals. “Sometimes customers ask for redundant systems and steps because a program or process is new to them,” said Jonathan Tillman, senior vice president for Millstone Medical Outsourcing, a provider of customized outsourcing solutions in Fall River, Mass. “For example, they might request an additional cleaning step or extra quality control measures that aren’t needed. As the outsource service provider, it is our job to eliminate unnecessary steps to develop a streamlined process that is cost-effective and complies with the highest standards
of quality.”
Tillman believes the most effective best practices are those that are related to more than just one segment of the business. “To be a best practice, a process or procedure has to cut across more than one aspect of a customer/vendor relationship,” he continued. “We try to apply best practices, from small- to large-scale ideas, in all areas of decision making. The end goal for us and our customers is to build a cost-effective, efficient, quality-controlled process that provides a win-win for both sides of the relationship.”
A recent example Tillman cited is a customer who approached the company with eight units to be packaged as a sterile kit. Their initial plan, which they believed would decrease validation costs and lead time, called for individually packaging each unit and collecting those units into a box.
“We recommended the alternative of moving to a double thermoform tray with all units packaged in the inner tray, sealed in a second tray, and then shipped in a box,” said Tillman. “At first, validation costs would be higher and lead times would be slightly longer, but the end result would be significant savings in time and material costs. In addition, the final package was easier to open and use at the surgical site and was also an environmentally friendly solution because it created less waste.”
Quality Builds Trust
The foundation for best practices is having world-class quality systems in place. “Our goal is to provide superior quality so that the parts of the process for which we are responsible don’t have to be repeated,” said Chris Ramsden, CEO for Millstone Medical Outsourcing. “For example, there are many instances in our industry where the manufacturer inspects, the outsourcing service provider inspects, and then the OEM inspects again. This creates inefficiency and costs time and money. By offering best-in-class inspection, as well as other services, we help our customers streamline processes and gain cost savings.”
Third-party certification is a quality requirement for most supplier relationships these days, but forward-thinking companies consider it only as a good starting point for continual process improvement. Relationships won’t last long if suppliers can’t stay on top of the latest developments in quality management, which can change quickly.
For example, even though NuSil Technology complies with ISO 9001, AS9100B, and select sections of ISO 13485 and 21 CFR Part 820 quality system regulations, “we continually review industry quality management programs and incorporate new elements from these programs when appropriate in order to keep pace with changing corporate and customer requirements,” said Nash. “Because we are a fully integrated silicone manufacturer, we can control any aspect of a product’s process and formulation to develop custom products that process and perform to customer specification. For our drug-delivery silicones we have dedicated clean room facilities for compounding with actives as well as in-house capabilities for performing content uniformity testing, extractions, elution studies, and shelf life stability studies. We also support all such products with drug master files.”
For other companies, although they may have well-documented processes in place that are typically ISO registered, the execution of those processes may be inefficient or flawed. All companies can benefit from periodic third-party assessments of their best practices.
“Our process assessments typically begin with a gap assessment measuring the client’s documented process against an established standard, such as IEC 62304 for software life cycle,” said Carey. “Once the gaps are known we will audit one or more recent programs completed by the client to determine how well the current process is used in practice.”
This type of independent assessment yields valuable feedback on how to improve compliance with current practices, improve weak aspects of the current process, and advance good practices to best practices. Clients can use the recommendations generated from the assessment engagements to target quality improvement initiatives and measure outcomes.
“An area that shows up fairly consistently is requirement capture and management,” said Carey. “It’s not unusual for a client to have very well-documented practices around requirements, but also have poor execution and high stakeholder dissatisfaction. A good example of how we might approach this problem is suggesting improvements for organization around requirements capture and tools designed for requirements management. Based on the initial assessment, we can typically quantify the amount of time that the current process takes to execute, establish improvement goals, and then track improvements once new practices and tools are in place.”
Building Partnerships, Not Relationships
More suppliers, vendors and outsourcers are reporting their OEMs want them to be more active as partners by providing additional services and being involved in the earliest stages of product development.
“They want to build a relationship and have the tools to be able to submit projects or drawings to us as if we were just another unit of their company, and be able to get immediate feedback on feasibility and price,” said Mike Adelstein, chief operating officer for Potomac Photonics, a microfabricator in Lanham, Md.
Potomac Photonics drives many of its best-practice activities with customer relationship management (CRM) software. “From the first contact we strive to be a partner in the project, not just a vendor,” he continued. “Initial meetings and phone calls usually include not only the salesperson but the lead engineer assigned to the project. We work together to understand the overall situation of the project, what problems they are having or anticipate having, the implications of the problems, and finally how we can provide them with a solution. An overall game plan is developed that includes a proposal for prototyping and a roadmap to production.We continually stay in contact with them throughout the process and keep track of all our conversations/obligations with our CRM software.”
Healthcare reform is creating tremendous pressure on OEMs to reduce costs. An important part of any best-practices partnership is sharing the responsibility to control costs, including joint lean initiatives to improve efficiencies and maximize production.
“This can’t be accomplished without both companies working together, pursuing a common goal,” said Jim Reed, vice president of sales and business development for Accellent Inc., a contract manufacturer in Wilmington, Mass. “Sure, some contract manufacturers simply decide to reduce prices on a year-over-year basis, but that business model is very short-sighted and sure to mark the demise of their ability to serve the marketplace. We are dedicated to continuous improvement programs and ongoing metrics. Accellent is also 100 percent committed to the ongoing training of key technical and program management skills while relentlessly pursuing technology development initiatives ahead of
product launch programs.”
Foliage has helped its clients move toward best practices in areas such as software life cycle, design history file, requirements management, and automated testing. “For example, we have a defined set of services that help our clients assess their current automated software test capabilities, develop a strategy to achieve best practices in this area, implement the strategy, and measure the outcomes through metrics and ROI [return on investment] analysis,” said Carey. “Automated test improvement is a good example because the up-front strategy typically requires an investment to achieve best practices and therefore can be measured with a defined ROI. This visibility enables all stakeholders to monitor the improvement against an expected return so it takes a technical process improvement and makes all stakeholders accountable for the success of the initiative.”
Benchmarking Improvement
Ensuring a process is the best it can be requires establishing goals and evaluating progress throughout the process using measurable metrics, such as delivery deadlines, quality controls, and throughput numbers. “At Millstone we regularly look for ways to streamline and enhance processes,” said Tillman. “We are constantly striving to get better and perform well above the average.”
“The most important element in building good manufacturing processes, next to clear goals, is having a good set of quality metrics,” agreed Perez. “Validating a process—devising it and testing it—makes sure that you are actually measuring what you set out to measure.”
Monitor the process continuously and be alert for abnormal or unusual results. Use as many appropriate tools as possible to measure the process and find areas of opportunity for improvement, including Six Sigma and Lean manufacturing principles.
“A valuable process we have employed is that of the ‘visual factory,’” said Perez. “We use visual representations of information and rely on this visualization to be able to immediately see where problems are occurring on the floor. We can monitor our process metrics in this manner.”
Having best practices in place and tracking metrics is pointless, Perez continued, if you don’t take the time to review how things are going and what lessons have been learned when progress has been made. “Are you checking your process against your goals or targets?” said Perez. “Are you meeting your goals? Take the time needed to review the process and the goals. Do you dedicate an individual to accomplish this, or a team? Would that individual or team be per company, or per project? Everyone on the team is responsible for best practices. Some teams like the manufacturing department have a dedicated responsibility and produce regular reports on output and progress towards goals. Other teams, the project teams, report on a regular basis as well.”
Is it Possible to Have Too Many Metrics?
“Definitely,” said Carey. “This is a fairly common problem because most people feel more information is better information.However, excess metrics only cloud the picture. The goal is to measure improvement so the objective of metrics should be to expose the degree of improvement with as few measures that tell the story. Unfortunately, it does take close examination to isolate and gain consensus on the most important indicators but, if executed well, this step can make all the difference. Once consensus is established on the key metric or metrics for measuring improvement, then all key stakeholders can get behind the improvement initiative, track improvement, and reward progress.”
Tillman said you will know you are managing best practices effectively when your customers actively engage you throughout the entire process.
“Whether it is packaging or loaner kit processing, you are developing a solution together, collaboratively,” he said. “That’s when you know you are viewed by your customer as a strategic partner.”
Mark Crawford is a full-time freelance business and marketing/communications writer based in Madison, Wis. His clients range from startups to global manufacturing leaders such as Kohler. He also writes a variety of feature articles for regional and national publications and is the author of five books. Contact him at mark.crawford@charter.net.