Testimonials

Here are just some of the comments made by senior managers, department managers and team leaders from various client organisations, following the implementation of AOM into their operations.

Management Comments

"Over the course of the year with Workware ... there has been a 38% increase [in productivity]."

"We are now utilising capacity that was latent."

"The AOM methodology is much admired within the .... Operations team as the methodology not only drives productivity management from the top down, but also focuses team leaders and team members on their own productivity performance at both a team and individual level. This drives an element of competitiveness which helps to eliminate unproductive time. This bottom up approach means that even when the team leaders are not supervising the line, the team members are still internally driven to perform."

"Further capacity has been identified. To date this excess is being absorbed by not backfilling for attrition and releasing people for cross training. This multi-skilling will further enable savings in due course as flexibility of the workforce increases."

"Capacity has been loaned to other teams reducing the need for weekend overtime and allowing a reduction in temporary staff."

"Due to capacity shown within Workware, staff were able to be released in order to clear a backlog of 1000 items, without the need for overtime."

"Benefits realised have been greater than projected and equally importantly the operational control has enabled the delivery of additional benefits from other strategic projects such as Lean Six Sigma and centre consolidations."

"We can now ...link customer demand for services all the way through to financial forecasts. This ...really is adding significant value."

"Workware has given us greater focus… Before, it was finger in the air. Now it's more disciplined. We have greater delegating,... team leaders themselves are taking responsibility."

"We've seen a 25% increase in productivity over 12 months. 10% of that is better data capture. The other 15% is real bankable savings."

"Before, …forecasting wasn't done at team levels, where it could make a difference. Now we have tidy data that lets managers manage."

"Team leaders are now really thinking about performance and managing individual differences."

"The differences in the way we do things now? The formalities around a cycle of events for planning, loading, balancing. Now we have a cross-team discussion."

"My management team are far better equipped to understand their resources requirements today, tomorrow, next week and over the next several months."

"I think we have almost the ideal tool. We can see what we’re looking for, it's not too noisy and it's fair."

"I'm very glad that I have the tool because it makes the work coming through and the resource needed transparent. I've got a completely objective [measure] that I can use."

"We can now forecast very accurately how much work will come in, and we can now calculate what we can do."

"I think my team managers would be lost without it actually!"

"Both managers and staff were initially sceptical… But as soon as they finished their training and saw the stats coming out, that turned positive. They were surprised by how accurate their planning could be."

"Before, backlogs were hidden. We weren’t really reporting them. If we hadn't taken control we would have been sunk."

"The cultural change… allows us to create a more controlled and efficient production environment. My management team now have the tools to do their job well."

"It gives them [team leaders] a bigger picture of where the overall team is. They are more ready to help each other across teams. It has helped with carrying out training because they can see when there is an opportunity to do that. And they can plan exactly what training is needed – based on observed productivity and team skills needs."

"Our managers have a real sense of things dropping into place... We can now forecast very accurately how much work will come in, and we can now calculate what we can do. This really is adding significant value."

"Basically if you look at the productivity results you'll see about a 25% increase over 12 months. AOM introduces a high degree of control to a site... We used to have about 15% difference between the productivity numbers for busy vs quiet days. Last month we had 2.5% difference on average. This stability reflects a state of control - and calm."

"AOM 'does what it says on the tin. They do things that genuinely pay back. The work they have done for me has had big paybacks in the order of 20% ... When they're finished, they leave the knowledge behind. The products are simple understandable, and help managers to manage. They do the piece of work, transfer the knowledge and then leave you to get on with it."

Team leader comments:

"Due to using Workware as a tool, we were able to see that cheques had huge capacity within the team, 2 members were loaned to processing over a 2 week period and a back-log of 1000 items was cleared due to this."

"AOM has forced my staff to look at their own performance and account for their own time during the day. This ensures that every team member is pushing themselves to achieve more and as a team they are becoming more productive. This is being reflected in the amount of work we are clearing."

"AOM allows me to identify who my strong and weak performers are. After a month of accurate data being input into AOM, I could clearly see that one individual's productivity was pulling the whole team down. Once this was investigated further it came to light that ... they were struggling to find work to do. This was because they needed further training on a specific part of the job. The member of staff now makes me aware of this on a daily basis and I distribute the work differently. I have also started cross training as a result. The member of staff's productivity has increased by 30% in the last month."

"I think as a whole, AOM has helped us to manage the reduction of cases in our backlog. Now that the backlog has got so small, we have a little more resource. With this we are looking to utilise this time by providing team members with extra training to improve their knowledge across the team. In turn we can then look to terminate the contracts of the 3 remaining temps on this team once the quality of the work across the team has reached a satisfactory state."

"Before AOM, we were never able to predict the week ahead and in turn manage the outcomes. With Workware, we have been able to identify when we are likely to struggle and need extra resource. We are also able to utilise team members to their full potential... I think since Workware has been introduced, team members now feel that they are being managed appropriately and are in turn more relaxed because they feel management are more knowledgeable."

"We identified a large amount of hours available but big training issues. There are a lot of smaller teams within our team and none of the staff were cross trained on each team to enable flexibility. With the spare hours available, we have cross trained staff to enable permanent staff to move into positions where temps are so that temps can be managed out of the business where they are no longer needed."