IMPROVING PRODUCTIVITY THROUGH QUALITY & COST REDUCTION

Course Outline 

• Productivity defined 
• Definitions 
• Productivity limitations 
• Process-based view 
• The ‘Muda’ factor 

• Eight types of waste 
• Cost of poor quality 
• Principles of cost reduction: the quality approach 
• Quality defined 
• Cornerstones of quality 

• Barriers to cost reduction programs 
• Setting up a cost reduction program 
• Resistance psychology in humans 
• Techniques to involve employees in your quality improvement tasks 
• The role of suggestion schemes 

• Productivity improvement tools 
• Productivity improvement project road map 
• Tool selection 
• Brainstorming 
• Pareto 

• How-how method 
• Why-why method 
• Ishikawa fish-bone diagram 
• Six Sigma 
• Lean principles 

• Non-value added analysis 
• Re-engineering 
• The ‘Focus’ method 
• Cost reduction opportunities 
• Streamlining the organization and the ESSA method 

• SMART practices for increasing productivity 
• Cost savings opportunities 
• Barriers to a cost-cutting program 
• Getting commitment to a cost-cutting program 
• One hundred and forty ideas to cut costs 

• Measuring your productivity initiatives 
• Key performance indicators 
• Types of measures 
• Setting targets for cost reduction 
• Benchmarking 

• Types of benchmarking 
• The balanced scorecard 
• The dashboard