Conference "Streamlining Performance: Ukrainian Business Experience in Applying Best Management Practices"

23/03/17

 

Change before you have to!”
Jack Welch, СЕО, General Electric

 

From 6 to 8 December 2016, the Conference "Streamlining Performance: Ukrainian Business Experience in Applying Best Management Practices" was held in Kyiv. This is the first annual event focused on challenges in implementing the Lean Six Sigma framework, and on development and performance assessment of production systems. The conference was delivered by BPI-Group in collaboration with PwC Academy Ukraine.  

Olga Andrienko-Bentz, Director at PwC Ukraine, opened the conference. According to Olga, performance improvement is of critical importance for Ukrainian business. In today's world, innovations and performance improvement initiatives in the real economy sector contribute to a strong competitive position of any country globally. According to Ukraine 2020 Development Strategy, the country intends to be among TOP-40 economies in the Global Competitiveness Index. We are ranked 79 among 140 economies now. According to this rating, Ukraine is ranked 91 for business process complexity and is significantly behind developed countries. This low rating is driven, among other things, by scarce investments in technology and innovation over many years. For the next 10 years, a percentage of production tasks performed without human involvement will increase from 10% to 40-50%. Moreover, technology is increasingly capable of optimising not only daily routine but also more sophisticated and intelligence-driven assignments.

Фото 1 - Конференція Подвоєння продуктивності

"Contemporary history shows an extremely unequal distribution of innovative technologies between the world economies. It directly relates to international distribution of labour, specifically of the low skilled labour. The cheaper the workforce is, the less business is motivated to improve its performance. As a result, rich countries become richer and poor countries become poorer. Therefore, Ukraine should learn to import innovations and know-how and should export valued-added high-tech products. To this end, business must be committed to improve performance and to implement labour and energy efficient technologies",

Olga concluded.

Over 200 conference participants, including leadership teams from leading Ukrainian operational excellence players and reputable international experts representing Shingo Institute (USA), Lean Enterprise Institute (USA), Nissan (UK), Аrcelor Mittal, SunInBev, METRO Cash and Carry Ukraine, EVRAZ Ukraine, JSC Raiffeisen Bank Aval,  Leoni Wiring System etc., had the opportunity to gain the invaluable experience, to learn more about hands-on approaches to performance improvement and cost reduction best practices and to network with their peers from other industries. The invited speakers are opinion leaders in their industries and are recognised globally. 

"The conference addresses a critically important topic – development of modern operational management techniques in Ukraine. These techniques are especially crucial for Ukraine where the economy is traditionally based on industrial enterprises",

Andrey Sergeiev, Partner at BPI Group, comments.
Фото 2 - Конференція Подвоєння продуктивності

Implementing the Lean manufacturing practices has been a challenging high-priority task for Ukrainian companies over many years. "Lean manufacturing is one of our company's values, one of the principles we determined for ourselves. Therefore, we are committed to its implementation", Sergey Bulavin, the conference participant and First Vice President of Agrogeneration, mentions. "We have already pursued some processes via Lean Six Sigma, completed an assessment, changed these processes appropriately and capitalised on the economic effect, and now we are definitely committed to its full-scope implementation".

However, according to the event participant Yurii Mikhailiv, Operational Excellence Director at EVRAZ UKRAINE, Ukraine is very much behind European countries and the US in this respect. "We have been implementing Lean manufacturing in EVRAZ Group entities for six years. Other companies are also involved in implementing Lean practices. However, making a move to the cutting edge requires development of government programmes and cooperation between various organisations, Yurii says. — If we want to become a European country and to be performance improvement-minded, it will be difficult for us to proceed without Lean manufacturing". 

For this very reason, Lean Manufacturing training programmes delivered by PwC Academy are in such a great demand on the market.

"A wide range of corporate training programmes successfully delivered by PwC Academy since 2010 was designed for companies operating in numerous industries, including agribusiness, telecommunication, banking and other sectors. For many years, PwC Academy has been supporting companies in learning best practices and implementing the Lean manufacturing framework in their organisations, as well as in developing the dedicated expert community",

Irina Blinova, PwC Academy Leader, says.

Therefore, the first annual conference of the Ukrainian Forum of Operational Excellence Leaders is a unique event for Ukrainian companies in terms of the performance improvement and capacity optimisation. It has given new impetus to a social movement bringing together the companies devoted to promotion of the production systems development culture.

According to the conference participant Yurii Kalko, Head of the Operational Excellence Function at ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih, his company has been implementing operational excellence practices since 2008. "We started with spot improvements and tackling of key wastes. We then identified that we needed a more robust approach to navigate both the entire company and all lines of its business. Consequently, we have decided to build the continuous improvement system. It is what ArcelorMittal is focused on at present. This conference is a great initiative for many companies to understand their current situation and to set the target to move to", Yurii says. 

The Ukrainian Forum aims at bringing together the companies committed to promotion of the culture of the production systems improvement. In addition, a key idea is to run the nationwide Ukrainian contest between companies committed to development of their production systems as a step forward towards an experience similar to the international contest Shingo Institute runs. However, according to Shaun Barker, Operations and Audit Director at Shingo Institute, the idea of the event is something more than a Shingo Prize merely. This is a continuous movement towards operational excellence. "I believe it is essential for any organisation to improve its performance continuously. That is exactly what we are talking about here. We consider both the company performance and behaviour to demonstrate the specific behaviour-driven effect", he mentions.

The conference participants benefited from various training sessions and master classes customised to different backgrounds and areas of interests. The training sessions and master classes were held concurrently at two venues to offer a wide range of topics to the participants.

Фото 3 - Конференція Подвоєння продуктивності

During the training, business representatives obtained knowledge of tools and approaches to implementation of the Lean manufacturing framework, management techniques for Six Sigma project implementation and transformation at an enterprise level, development of the sustainable Lean manufacturing culture, transformation of the corporate culture as part of implementation of the Lean Six Sigma tools, as well as practices and challenges of implementation by Ukrainian enterprises. The Forum participants were also able to study business cases of several factories that shared their experience of Lean Six Sigma implementation, and to analyse the lessons learnt and success stories.

The key topics addressed at the conference covered a review of Lean manufacturing tools, an analysis of the production system maturity model and a relevant experience of major companies and holding companies in system implementation and performance improvement.

As part of the Forum, PwC Academy run a round table discussion of underlying principles for the Production Systems Development Forum to focus on a set of approaches to the production system assessment.

Фото 3 - Конференція Подвоєння продуктивності

"Our company is a partner and one of the initiators of the system maturity assessment for Ukrainian companies. The assessment has been performed for more than 52 entities of DTEK Energy. Our company has developed its own assessment tool derived from a combination of different practices and customised to our specific needs. Nevertheless, it is also important to have an independent assessment by external experts and to receive their feedback on the areas for system improvements", Yevgenii Ledenev, the event participant and the Head of the Operational Excellence Department at DTEK Energy, says.

Valeriy Sharykin, Head of the Continuous Improvement Department of the Metallurgy Division at Metinvest, said that his company had been changing its production environment for more than 6 years. “We have always had ambitious goals and our assessment methodology has therefore continued to evolve. We are on the verge of change again. We are actively discussing how we will proceed. Next year, we are going to adopt a new approach and today's meeting has helped us understand many things. I am ultimately convinced that we are on the right track to leverage on sound changes", he mentions.

Paul Robson, NAc Group CEO, expanded on changes too. In his opinion, a change control can help succeed in a constantly changing world.

"During the two days, we have been able to listen to more than 20 companies that shared their cases. In fact, all TOP 10 companies of the Ukrainian Forbes rating are here. It is crucial that Western companies operating in Ukraine gave due attention to the Forum, though we expected more foreign companies to be involved. I am confident that in 2017 their number will be much higher", Andrey Sergeiev summarised.

Conference "Streamlining Performance: Ukrainian Business Experience in Applying Best Management Practices" was an important and significant event for Ukrainian companies. The Forum is a platform to underpin vigorous establishment of the community of change and Lean manufacturing providers.

PwC Academy will continue to act as the initiator and promoter of the Lean manufacturing culture among Ukrainian companies. 

Фото 3 - Конференція Подвоєння продуктивності

Contact us

Irina Blinova

Irina Blinova

PwC Academy Leader, PwC in Ukraine

Tel: +380 44 354 04 04

Daryna Andriychuk

Daryna Andriychuk

Senior Manager, PwC in Ukraine

Tel: +380 44 354 04 04

Tamara  Ludchenko

Tamara Ludchenko

Administrator of PwC Academy, PwC in Ukraine

Tel: +380 44 354 04 04

Follow PwC Ukraine

Required fields are marked with an asterisk(*)

email

Name & Surname

phone number

company

position

By submitting your email address, you acknowledge that you have read the Privacy Statement and that you consent to our processing data in accordance with the Privacy Statement (including international transfers). If you change your mind at any time about wishing to receive the information from us, you can send us an email message using the Contact Us page.

Hide