AGILE KNOWLEDGE -WORK DESIGN · • Design and rollout of continuous improvement frameworks (5-S, Lean Six Sigma) • Capability development & training in 5-S, Lean Six Sigma, Agile

Page 1 of 6© Veritas Asia Pacific P/L 2019. All rights reserved.Agile Knowledge - Work Design Capabilities V2.2

Introduction to Veritas Asia Pacific Pty LtdVeritas Asia Pacific Pty Ltd (VERITAS) is a progressive, privately owned advisory services firm that provides work design services and solutions to knowledge-work industries. These industries include Transport (Roads, Rail and Ferries), Aviation, Water and Electricity.

VERITAS also provides advisory services to clients in the Defence Industry and to all levels of Government specifically in the Education, Health and Transport portfolios.

Our business focus is to deliver value using modern scientific management methods to achieve sustainable outcomes. We work in a collaborative and inclusive manner to assist our clientele achieve their strategic, tactical and operational goals.

We aim to be an integral partner in overcoming the many challenges that arise from developing, designing, operating and improving the ways of working in a non-repetitive knowledge-based work environment and fully realising the benefits from:

• The deployment of the strategic intent of the business;

• Establishing a connection of the human chain;

• Implementing a structured problem-solving process; and

• Defining the optimal challenge for the best productivity.

VERITAS’ approach assists its clientele to more effectively manage their knowledge work and develop their operational management capability for long term sustainability. VERITAS assists its clientele in developing and implementing both capacity and capability optimisation strategies to improve service delivery, reduce waste, reduce overall expenditure and maximise productivity that focuses on the needs of the customer.

Our personnel have a diverse range of skills and experience generated from a variety of backgrounds and industries – this enables us to provide specific, informed, independent and reliable cross-industry advice and to provide holistic perspectives that can add significant value to our clientele.

AGILE KNOWLEDGE -WORK DESIGN


Our Agile Knowledge-Work services typically provides the answers to:

• Do the actions of knowledge workers meet the goals of the business or work group?

• Are there ways to ensure the best methods are employed?

• Who and how are the necessary answers for knowledge gaps fulfilled?

• How often are knowledge workers expected to check in?

• What happens when something goes wrong?

• How are lessons learnt and retained for future benefit?

• What is the tolerable gap between activity and the business intent?

• How is this gap handled and how does it relate to the workflow?

Agile Knowledge-work ServicesVERITAS has highly knowledgeable, experienced and certified Consultants with extensive experience in the provision of Business Excellence services in Agile Knowledge-work across a range of industries. Our Business Excellence services consultants bring with them policy, strategic planning and operations advisory experience gained from transport, manufacturing, engineering and aviation industries and experience from working with government and regulatory authorities.

VERITAS’ Business Excellence services in Agile Knowledge-work extends across all levels of management and supervision, from identifying the business intent, its impact on all tasks and activities throughout the business, through to the delivery and evidence of performance uplift and the handover to trained and capable sponsors and champions for sustainability. Our Business Excellence services include:

• Strategy Deployment Methodology and Capability

• Aligning Critical Business Processes with Customer Expectations

• Building organisational capability to effectively:

º Champion projects at the strategic level

º Sponsor projects at both strategic and operational level

º Identify and lead cross-functional business process improvement


º Lead local operational project

º Identify and empower problem-solving at the task and activity level

• Management and Strategy Audit and Review

• Data Management, Collection and Analysis

• Effective KPI identification and measurement

• Design knowledge work for dynamic workplaces

• Maturity Assessments (incl. quality, asset management, risk management)

• Design and implementation of Management Operating Systems (MOS)

• Design and rollout of continuous improvement frameworks (5-S, Lean Six Sigma)

• Capability development & training in 5-S, Lean Six Sigma, Agile Knowledge-work, second- and

third-party auditing

• Collectively, VERITAS offer our Clients over 200 years of advisory and services experience.

The following are examples of Business Excellence services delivered by our current Directors,

Principals and Senior Consultants:

• Working within Roads & Maritime Services - Business Review & Improvement Branch to lead

the development of organisational capability across the agency to implement a risk-based

approach to Strategic Portfolio Management for non-infrastructure investments. This included the:

º Review and analysis of 280 projects and 22 programs of work (approx. AU$500M of

business transformation initiatives),

º Development and delivery of briefing sessions to 3 levels of management,

º Coaching and mentoring on best practice risk, project, program and portfolio

management and

º Alignment of initiatives to corporate strategy and business plans.• Delivered the process re-engineering project of the re-manufacturing plant/overhaul

facility for GE AC traction motors servicing Pacific National’s fleet of electric locomotives and


air compressors for CityRail’s fleet of EMUs, following 5-S and lean principles, reducing warranty and liability damages exceeding US$6M.

• Developed and implemented an innovative multi-criteria analysis framework for TfNSW that

was used to evaluate the proposed Sydney rail network configuration scenarios (potentially

over 1,000 projects) to understand and identify which group of projects would be optimal

in delivering the requirements of from the 2024 and 2031 Sydney Rail timetables. This

work was extended to evaluate the candidate programs and projects using numerous criteria

to determine the optimal portfolio of projects to be rolled out by TfNSW.

• Provision of improvement services for an NBNco construction partner to turn around supplier

performance from last (10th) rating to second nationally and first in NSW within 3 months.

• Delivery of safety improvements for NSW TrainLink drivers by identifying factors contributing

to high musculoskeletal disorder rates. A beneficial spin-off of this project identified new

Intercity fleet procurement deficiencies, which were rectified due to this project’s outcome.

• Order-to-cash process improvements by root cause analysis and ideation of sustainable

solutions to improve the cash flow position by $4M.

• A portfolio of projects for a multinational manufacturing and services company with over

300 successfully delivered improvements delivering verified P&L savings of US$65M and

another US$80M in indirect benefits.

• A portfolio of projects delivering strategically prioritised improvements for customers as well

as internal cost reductions of $36M within 18 months for Downer Rail.

• A range of projects for a security firm requiring agile working and paperwork automation for

order processing, call centre efficiency improvements, weekly timesheet workflow

improvements and inventory reduction

• Over 4000 hours of training delivered to 600 candidates from executive awareness and

sponsorship, through to identifying and leading improvement projects, to simple and quick

workshop problem-solving.


• Improvements in the handling of competency assessment processing, catering waste,

customer lost property as well as supply chain improvements within the NSW Transport cluster.

• Resolution of long-term reliability problems and asset management services for freight clients

at United Group Rail.

• Provision of Maturity Assessment Services to the Babcock & Brown Power Board of Directors

for the delivery of their strategic asset management program that included in-depth reviews of

the following projects:

• Commissioning of Braemar No 2 Power Station – 450MW (Qld) º Shutdown overhaul of Newport Power Station - 510MW (VIC) º Control Room upgrade of Northern Power Station - 520MW (SA) º Review of maintenance planning Redbank Power Station – 151MW (NSW)

• Provision of Maturity Assessment Services to the AGL Limited’s Risk Committee for the delivery

of their Capital Program that included the following projects: º Construction of Bogong Hydroelectric Power Station – 140MW (VIC) º Generator replacement for West Kiewa Hydroelectric Power Station - 62MW (VIC) º McKay Creek Hydroelectric Power Station – 150MW (VIC) º Commissioning of Hallet Wind Farm - 45 turbines totalling 95MW (SA)

For further information or any enquiries, please contact:

Charles Plenge+61 419 046 [email protected]

Alan Bellrose+61 419 385 [email protected]


Business Excellence & Agile Knowledge-Work Case Study:

Accounts Receivable A multinational business with manufacturing facilities in New South Wales was experiencing poor cash flow and a significant quantity of work each month clearing over 3000 businesses on credit hold. The high days sales outstanding (DSO) had crept up to 59 days, after being at 55 days for several years. This increase impacted the free cash flow (FCF) by $2.2M and provided debtors with an extra 15 days on average to pay.

On investigation, it was found that neither the blue-chip clients, medium businesses or the walk-in sales were stand-out transgressors. This required an investigation of the business’s own process and documentation as the probable root cause of the problem.

It was found that poorly worded terms and conditions on the back of the invoice, created confusion in the minds of the respective Accounts Payable personnel. It wasn’t that payment was being deliberately withheld for about 2 weeks, it was the disparity in understanding of when the payment was due. Business Excellence methods revisited the process and documentation; and reduced the DSO to under 50 days, adding $1.4M to the business cash flow.

That was when Agile Knowledge -Work came to the fore to ensure the FCF would not blow out again to the high levels from which it had been recovered. As the businesses on credit hold were reduced to less than 30 per month, management and organisation was needed to keep these new levels under control, which eased the month-end stress and allowed the staff to more pro-actively communicate with debtors to remind them of up-coming payment-due dates.

Analysing the working duties of the staff against the strategic intent indicated that a gap had developed and broadened over time from intent of collecting funds when due; to creating useless graphs and reports and reacting with retribution to debtors, the overwhelming majority of who weren’t malicious in their intentions at all. In fact it was proven that those that didn’t or couldn’t pay on time was only around 1% of the original transgressors.

The manner of controlling the staff’s work was to implement a visual management system based on Lean and Agile principles to assign and regulate the quantity of tasks and have all staff understand the status of each active job throughout the whole department. This bonded the department together by promoting teamwork; ensured all work was completed on time; and confirming that only an optimal amount of work was being handled at any one time for the best efficiency. This improved the payment processing and customer communications (yes, at the end of the day, the debtors were customers, who were wanted for return business) by 15% on top of building better and more relaxed relationships with the debtors. This also proved beneficial as the business was no longer seen as being difficult to work with.

Documents

AGILE KNOWLEDGE -WORK DESIGN · • Design and rollout of continuous improvement frameworks (5-S, Lean Six Sigma) • Capability development & training in 5-S, Lean Six Sigma, Agile