Manufacturing tactics to mitigate lockdown and position for recovery

Manufacturing Tactics to mitigate lockdown and position for recovery-Webinar

Following on Arrie van Niekerk's successful HERA sponsored workshop in 2019 and webinar recently, Stratflow is proud to follow up with another Webinar which deals with surviving and thriving in the new world order. The future has always been uncertain, and with the Covid 19 induced disruption, this will become even more so, especially when we transition into a post-lockdown environment.

Businesses will need to work harder over the coming months to adapt quickly to this scenario. It’s why, following a very successful workshop presented by Theory of Constraints (TOC) Expert, Arrie van Niekerk, we’re proud to bring him back, and offer an exclusive & FREE webinar.

It’s focus – assisting our fabricators and manufacturers facilitate fast startup approaches to enhance their product delivery and improve cash flow during this time. Arrie will provide guidelines and proposed actions utilising the concepts of TOC Flow Based Management to inform fast re-start of production to maximise flow post-lockdown.

The nature of lockdown stoppages

The types of stoppages that occur with lockdowns are rare and very few organisations have examples of quick startups following such experiences. The current lockdowns happened with short notice and had limited support – making a successful startup very challenging. If we take the traditional approach to ramp up business by starting everything simultaneously, we’ll likely cause a series of concertina effects that’ll take longer to reach stable flow conditions.

This is something we can’t afford under current circumstances – we have no choice but to improve the startup process quickly and significantly! Using the concepts of TOC we’ve developed an approach that significantly improves the probability of achieving this. These concepts are thought-provoking and we believe will help establish agility and fluidity. It’s now time for cool heads, clear thinking, good planning and empowered execution. This webinar will ensure your company is on a journey of continuous improvement from both a short term operational and long term strategic perspective.

The TOC approach

Our operations can benefit by switching from a mindset of optimising everything towards a mindset of maximized flow. Most of our fabricators have installation projects running in parallel with operations and have to balance the projects’ critical path execution (the bottleneck of the projects) with the capability of operations. At the same time, we have to ensure that we have the required raw materials and a reliable supply mechanism within an uncertain environment. Balancing all these factors can only be done through having the right approach (model), mindset and daily practice which is different from business as usual – it has to function within the new normal.

Arrie van Niekerk | Tavanec CEO

I have over 25 years’ experience with the application of the TOC Production Flow approach. My company has successfully applied it into more than 100 operations in many parts of the world, delivering remarkable results.

My expertise lies in finding unique solutions for production flow lines in manufacturing, fabrication, construction, asset management and maintenance – covering a range of activities related to iron and steel making, as well as iron ore, coal and other raw material mines.

Holding a B Eng Hons (Metallurgy) from the University of Pretoria I’ve been the Head of the Welding Research Facility for ISCOR Ltd rising to General Manager of Research and Development, and Works Manager of Iscor Refractories during my time there. Here I was able to implement TOC to reduce production lead time from 22 weeks with 60% on-time performance to six weeks lead time with 92% on-time performance over a nine month period. Companies I’ve worked with as a specialist facilitator of TOC include Goldfields, Exxaro, Kumba Iron ore, Anglo American, Norilsk SA, Metorex, Kazakhmys, De Beers, Anglo Platinum, Avmin, Implats, Lonmin, Teal Exploration & Mining, Lonmin, Glencore.