Many companies today are facing significant challenges that require profound changes in their indirect areas. The rapid progress of digitalization is demanding and challenging for many organizations. At the same time, the rising costs of products and indirect areas are shrinking profit margins. Short product life cycles and the pressure to innovate put companies under additional pressure. Complicated processes and long order processing times hinder efficiency and increase complexity. An increasing employee turnover leads to a loss of valuable know-how.
The Amazonas Framework as a solution
This is where the Amazonas framework comes in. The goal is to achieve measurable success through operational excellence in the indirect areas. The framework uses performance enablers in various performance clusters to achieve a sustainable, flexible and efficient performance. It offers a structured and holistic approach to address the pain points mentioned above and to measurably increase and continuously improve the performance of the indirect areas, their value contribution, measurably and continuously improve it.
You can achieve holistic operational excellence by taking the step from production to sales, marketing and development. This will gain a pull effect that will boost everyone away. Historically, the start is often in production areas. The market and development side should be integrated at an early stage in order to set up the base for excellent processes.
Alexander Bartel Managing Director, Gebr. Brasseler Gmbh & Co. KG
Why Amazonas?
The name “Amazonas” was deliberately chosen because it symbolizes the great river that flows through various landscapes in South America and connects numerous ecosystems. The Amazonas is not only one of the largest rivers in the world, but also a synonym for constant flow, growth, and diversity – principles that are also of central importance in Lean Management.
Just as the river is constantly moving and provides life to everything in its environment, the Amazonas framework is intended to ensure that processes in the indirect areas are designed to be fluid and efficient. It promotes a continuous improvement process that connects and optimizes the various areas of a company.
Structuring knowledge
Managing data
Ensuring knowledge availability
Designing end-to-end
Making it measurable
Reducing waste
Managing portfolio
Managing deviations
Proceeding iteratively
Ensuring agility
Designing a network
Shaping change
Leading effectively
Promoting team performance
Developing talents
Developing a digitization strategy
Digitizing processes
Using AI
Structuring knowledge
Managing data
Ensuring knowledge availability
Performance clusters and their enablers
The framework is divided into seven performance clusters, each containing specific enablers to enable the necessary transformation:
Service portfolio: This involves managing the entire life cycle of products, reducing complexity costs, and establishing sustainable practices. By optimizing the service portfolio, companiescan reduce their costs while achieving their sustainability goals.
Processes: The design of end-to-end processes, the measurability of processes and the elimination of waste are key elements. Efficient processes lead to better controllability and shorter lead times, which in turn increases competitiveness.
Projects: Effective project portfolio management, deviation management and iterative approaches ensure that projects are completed successfully. This increases the flexibility and adaptability of the organization.
Organization: Agility, network design and change management are key issues. An agile organization can react quickly to market challanges and successfully implement change processes.
Collaboration: Effective leadership, driving team performance and talent development are critical to success. Strong collaboration leads to higher team performance and better employee retention.Collaboration: Effective leadership, driving team performance and talent development are critical to success. Strong collaboration leads to higher team performance and better employee retention.
Digitalization: Focus is on developing a digitalization strategy, digitalization processes, and using artificial intelligence. This improves data availability, makes processes more efficient and increases the ability to innovate.
Knowledge management: Structuring knowledge, managing data, and ensuring knowledge availability are the main tasks here. Effective knowledge management leads to better use of information and faster decision-making.
Target state achieved
Through the targeted application of performance enablers in the various clusters, companies achieve operational excellence. That is characterized by high efficiency, flexibility, and sustainability throughout the entire organization.
These improvements are measurable and are reflected in optimized costs, improved processes, increased employee satisfaction and lead to increased customer benefits.
Nicolas Romfeld is a Systemic Coach, Professional Scrum Master and Industrial Engineer. As an experienced consultant, coach and sparring partner for managers, employees and teams, he is also a trainer at Staufen Academy. He is an expert in Lean Development and Lean Administration, agile methods and leadership and communication from strategy to implementation. He has a wealth of industry experience in services, mechanical and plant engineering, automotive and electronics.
Nicolas Romfeld has over 10 years of consulting experience in Lean Transformation in R&D and order fulfillment, production and management. For clients, he is responsible for designing and implementing tailor-made training and development programs along with the internal development of several professional and management seminars. He heads consulting projects that focus on strategy development, performance improvement, collaboration, product development, quality management and technical problem-solving.
Michael Metzger has a degree in Industrial Engineering and qualified as a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and Professional Scrum Master. He is a trainer at Staufen Academy, has been a Lean consultant for many years and is an experienced project manager in Lean, agile transformation and cost optimization projects. With his consulting experience, he has worked in the automotive, insurance, transportation, mechanical and plant engineering industries and also in the process and food industries.
A consultant, trainer and coach in the areas of process and leadership excellence and agile transformations, Michael Metzger is also a master trainer for Lean Administration and a trainer for agility at Staufen Academy. He coaches employees and managers at all hierarchical levels and has over 10 years of experience in improving indirect areas and implementing integrated transformation and qualification projects.
Staufen, your reference for Operational Excellence. As the leading top management consultancy for operational excellence, we enable our clients to improve results in all areas along the value chain.
At Kässbohrer, the world market leader for snow grooming
vehicles, the product development was transformed to a
value stream-oriented organization with clear roles and
responsibilities. Complemented by the introduction of Shop
Floor Management, the efficiency and punctuality of projects
has been significantly increased. With this step, Kässbohrer
is equipped to master industry trends such as sustainability,
digitalization and the shortage of skilled workers and to
expand its technological leadership.
Dr. Christoph Weiss has formed companies from a diverse range of situations in his career: advisor, restructuring manager, corporate manger, and proprietor. As CEO of C & E Fein GmbH, he has worked with the support of Staufen AG to focus more closely on the indirect areas. In a discussion with Christian Möllers, a partner at Staufen AG, he explains how they went about raising efficiency potential there.
How to achieve operational excellence in indirect areasExcellent in indirect areas
Global competition and the economic downturn are forcing companies to optimize their costs. An often overlooked potential lies in the indirect areas. Savings of 15 to 25 percent can be achieved through holistic optimization approaches.
But indirect areas are rarely addressed comprehensively, mostly due to a lack of transparency and measurable performance indicators. A holistic approach requires a unified view of all resources.
This allows areas to be evaluated, benchmarks to be established, and priorities to be set.
