Make innovations fly!
Cost savings
Achieve Sustainable and Innovative Savings
Cost savings are often unavoidable, especially in times of economic uncertainty. Nevertheless, very often short-sighted measures are taken, which are often unsustainable and have little or no impact. The common procedures are personnel savings, divesting parts of the company, reorganizations or process optimizations. In many cases, however, these are ineffective. Here we want to show that with a little creativity there are significantly more sustainable options.
We offer advice, moderation of workshops, project support or project management of optimization projects or method training.
Exemplary Projects
Material Cost Saving and Trimming of Process Steps
Problem:
In a development project of a medical device manufacturer, it turned out that the material costs (COGS) of the planned product were too high.
Method:
The problem was analyzed with methods from the TRIZ toolbox. The product and manufacturing process were examined in detail with Function Analysis and Function Analysis for Processes. In a workshop first ideas and approaches were developed. These have been further elaborated with advanced methods such as Function Oriented Search and Feature Transfer.
Result:
In total, 25% material could be saved and one process step could be eliminated.
Optimizing processes innovatively
Problem:
For a company from the regulated environment, a considerable effort was made to train employees in critical standard operating procedures. These trainings were numerous and time consuming. Often, because of other tasks, employees were also unable to use the knowledge promptly. Still, they had to do it.
Method:
A precise problem statement helped to conduct a focused discussion on this political issue. With the help of methods such as "Ideality” and some external triggers, the best possible solutions were worked out.
Result:
Ideas were developed that optimized the structure of the compulsory training of the employees, specifically when the content is needed.
Method Examples for Sustainable Savings
Function Analysis and Functional Analysis for Processes and Trimming
The Function Analysis is a very powerful analysis tool from TRIZ. It helps to understand all the components of a system and functions they perform and their relationships to other components.
A function is anything that changes a parameter of the target component. It must be very precise. It also lists the interaction with the environment ("super system").
Function Analysis can be used to understand problems and serves as a starting point for "trimming", a method of radically reducing components of a system.
Function Analysis can be used to analyze technical or process-related problems.
-as a basis for cost reduction e.g. by trimming components
- error reduction
- optimal design of processes, for example when other optimization methods have not yielded significant results.
-Etc.
This procedure is more comprehensive as e.g. Makigami, Six Sigma, SIPOC or Business Process Management (BPM) and can be used as a complement to them.
Ideality
The pursuit of ideality is a strong driver for innovations and improvements. This can also be used for e.g. workshops or projects. Ideality here is the sum of all positive properties divided by the sum of all negative properties of a system.
This can now be used very specifically to e.g. increase the benefits or minimize negative factors. This often helps even if e.g. sufficient ideas could not be developed with the 8 types of waste ("Muda"), 5S, A3 or Lean. Of course, the use of these procedures should be continued, but can be supplemented in a meaningful way