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Steps To Solving Operational Issues

If you are spending more time encountering the same issues over and over again in your business operations, you are going to notice over time that they are festering into bigger issues. The thing is, no matter what industry your business is in, if you have done the things that you have always done, you will get the results that you have always gotten.

Choosing to implement an approach that solves problems in your business can help you to realise the root cause of what is going wrong in your operations, so that you can approach it the right way and find solutions to the problem. Manufacturing plants are large places, and anything from boilers to heat exchangers can go wrong at any time. You need to take a problem solving approach and below, you will find this solution broken down into steps to make sure that mistakes do not happen.

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | Operational Issues Resolution | Corrective Action Program
 
Look at the problem. An issue can be seen as a temporary setback or an interruption in production. The problem is that these temporary setbacks can be costly, and the first thing that you need to be aware of is if a problem exists and you should view it as an opportunity to make improvements for next time.

Get to know the issue. Something in the plant has broken down and production has halted across the board. In order to understand the issue, you need to figure out what started all of it. Some of the questions that you can ask is:

  • Who needs to be informed?
  • What are the processes in question that have failed?
  • When and where did the issue occur?
  • What caused the issue?
  • Does the problem happen too often?

Implement temporary measures. You can’t always find a perfect solution right away, and that’s okay! You first need to put out the fire and put the right fix in place for now – even if that fix is only temporary.

Find the cause. You can’t always find the exact cause of the issue straight away, but when you do you need to find the root cause and not just the immediate problem. If the heat exchangers or boilers have failed, you need to figure out what caused the failure and then trace back from there to fix it. This will prevent it from happening again.

Find a solution. Once you know the root cause of the issue you are facing, you can figure out the solution. Work with your team and examine your options wholly. Once you find your solutions, plan for back up solutions in case the first solution doesn’t work.

Make a plan. Action plans are there to help you to implement the solutions that you’ve come up with. With the right resources and an established timeline, your progress can be closely watched.
Reap the rewards. When you start to see progress and results, collect the data to evaluate these results and use performance indicators against any standards you set. Adjust your plan and make it work.

Marathon Consulting Group, Inc. Listed as a StrategyDriven Trusted Services Partner

StrategyDriven Trusted Service PartnerStrategyDriven is proud to introduce Marathon Consulting Group as our newest Trusted Services Partner!

Having completed our rigorous certification process, we found Marathon Consulting Group to be a market leading service provider with proven client results.

Troubled organizations going through a regulatory recovery typically have longstanding performance issues driven by a number of factors. Recoveries led by Marathon have resulted in improved regulatory margin, equipment reliability, organizational alignment and safety culture, as well as 18% reduction in production costs and 60% fewer consequential events achieved within 1-2 years and sustained performance at that level.

Marathon Consulting Group provides services in the following areas:

  • Monitoring: Business Performance Assessment Program, Corrective Action Program, Management Observation Program
  • Management: Risk Management, Standards & Expectations
  • Values: Corporate Cultures

About Marathon Consulting Group

Led by richly experienced leaders and executives from the power industry, Marathon Consulting Group approaches regulatory recovery and other engineering, technology, and management challenges from a strategic and 100% solutions-focused perspective.

Learn more about Marathon Consulting Group at: marathoninc.com

About StrategyDriven

StrategyDriven provides executives and managers with the planning and execution advice, tools, and practices needed to create greater organizational alignment and accountability for the achievement of superior bottom line results. At StrategyDriven, our seasoned business leader experts deliver real-world strategic business planning and tactical execution best practice advice – a blending of workplace experience with sound research and academic principles – to tens of thousands of business leaders worldwide.

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How Leaders Drive Resolution of Their Company’s Most Pressing Issues

Want to drive resolution of your company’s issues while enhancing organizational alignment and accountability?
 
StrategyDriven Corrective Action Program ForumStrategyDriven is launching a Corrective Action Program Forum; uniquely providing expert advice and best practice methods to help leaders programmatically drive resolution of key issues and execution of work requests aligned with their organization’s goals.

StrategyDriven was founded on the principle of making the advanced practices of leading companies affordably available to small and midsized business leaders. As such, StrategyDriven Advisors compiled their decades of corrective action program experience into a library of best practice methods and tools easily accessible from our online forum.

Corrective action programs encompass the identification, reporting, evaluation, resolution, and trending of an organization’s issues and work requests. Effective program execution ensures timely resolution of a business’s most pressing issues while fostering a high level of individual and organizational accountability.

Contributed to by highly experienced business leaders, StrategyDriven’s online Corrective Action Program Forum provides actionable methods and tools executives and managers can use to implement and enhance key components of their corrective action program including:

  • Identification – Personnel at all levels of the organization recognize conditions deviating from established standards and expectations, adverse trends and events, and other needs for action.
  • Reporting – Individuals identifying conditions meeting established issue and/or request reporting criteria notify the appropriate managers verbally and in writing, via condition reports, of the situation.
  • Evaluation – Qualified personnel assess each reported issue and request individually and collectively to establish its priority and identify needed corrective actions and due dates, typically documented within a work and/or service order(s).
  • Resolution – Management reviews, approves, assigns resources, and monitors response actions assigned to issue and request resolution. Management’s actions are commonly documented on the associated work/service order(s).
  • Trending – Metrics and associated management reports provide a picture of overall performance based on tags characterizing each condition report and work/service order.

StrategyDriven Advisors possess decades of experience helping leaders of small to Fortune 500 companies define and implement the complex, mission-critical projects needed to improve operational effectiveness and reduce costs. Isn’t it about time these people were working for you?

For more information and to schedule your free corrective action program consultation, visit: www.strategydriven.com/cap.

StrategyDriven Enterprises Launches an Online Corrective Action Program Forum

StrategyDriven Enterprises launched an online corrective action program forum; providing leaders access to decades of first-hand experience in programmatically resolving their organization’s most pressing issues.
 
StrategyDriven Corrective Action Program ForumStrategyDriven Enterprises, LLC announced the launch of an online Corrective Action Program Forum; providing innovative thought leadership and collaboration opportunities to help executives and managers programmatically drive the resolution of their business issues.

Corrective action programs encompass the identification, reporting, evaluation, resolution, and trending of an organization’s issues and work requests. Effective program execution ensures timely resolution of a business’s most pressing issues while fostering a high level of individual and organizational accountability.

“For a business to remain competitive, its leaders must be assured their company’s most pressing issues are resolved in an effective, efficient, and timely manner,” explains Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “To help clients programmatically drive issue resolution, StrategyDriven advisors compiled their decades of corrective action program experience into a library of best practice methods and tools easily accessible from our online forum.”

“StrategyDriven’s recommended practices enhance organizational alignment and accountability through thoughtful identification of corrective actions and deliberate assignment of action owners and due dates,” says Karen Juliano, StrategyDriven’s Editor-in-Chief. “Through this greater focus on achieving the organization’s goals comes enhanced resource utilization and bottom line results.”

Contributed to by highly experienced business leaders, StrategyDriven’s online Corrective Action Program Forum provides actionable methods and tools executives and managers can use to implement and enhance key components of their corrective action program including:?

  • Identification – Personnel at all levels of the organization recognize conditions deviating from established standards and expectations, adverse trends and events, and other needs for action.
  • Reporting – Individuals identifying conditions meeting established issue and/or request reporting criteria notify the appropriate managers verbally and in writing, via condition reports, of the situation.
  • Evaluation – Qualified personnel assess each reported issue and request individually and collectively to establish its priority and identify needed corrective actions and due dates, typically documented within a work and/or service order(s).
  • Resolution – Management reviews, approves, assigns resources, and monitors response actions assigned to issue and request resolution. Management’s actions are commonly documented on the associated work/service order(s).
  • Trending – Metrics and associated management reports provide a picture of overall performance based on tags characterizing each condition report and work/service order.

The StrategyDriven Corrective Action Program Forum’s thought leadership documents are being distributed to StrategyDriven’s clients, including some of the world’s most respected companies. These documents are available at: www.StrategyDriven.com/cap.

Corrective Action Program Best Practice 18 – Due Date Extension Authorization

StrategyDriven Corrective Action Program ArticleImplementing performance improving actions can dramatically enhance the organizational results achieved. Unfortunately, many identified actions go unfulfilled, the victims of never ending delays. Establishing robust corrective action due date extension protocols, complimented by associated management metrics and reports, helps curtail unending activity deferment.

Management establishes the organization’s priorities and assigns activity due dates and resources accordingly. To meet this responsibility, managers must continuously monitor and control activity due dates and resource assignments after they are made; adjusting them accordingly as new information and/or opportunities become available.


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About the Author

Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven Principal is a StrategyDriven Principal and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.

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