New process flow charts help ES Denmark
ES Denmark has expanded dramatically over the last 18 months in order to support major operators Maersk Oil and Dong Energy, as they increase their oil-base mud (OBM) operations. To meet customer demands, M-I SWACO has invested in the facility and personnel infrastructure required to support the establishment of a local operation, hiring and training local offshore and onshore personnel. Brian Jamieson, the Denmark ES Operations Manager, describes the issues faced by the developing operation.
“During the initial setup phase, we had support from various areas, for which we are extremely grateful,” said Jamieson. “However, it soon became apparent that everyone had a different way of doing things—human nature—and this was leading to confusion with the new hires, wasted time, delays, backtracking, errors that had to be corrected, and so on. It was clear that we needed to develop standard operating procedures for our processes.”
Brian has been involved in many Continuous Improvement (CI) events during his time as ES UK Manager, so he knew first-hand the benefits to be realized by bringing together the people who actually do the job to develop solutions to the problems they face in their day-to- day job.
With this goal in mind, the Denmark ES operation held a CI event at the Esbjerg facility in June. The event focused on developing standard operating procedures for the support processes they manage. The process steps were mapped, from customer enquiry for a product, part or service all the way through to customer invoicing. After developing the process map for the current state and identifying potential improvements, the future-state process map was developed in the standard way with Post-it^ notes on the wall, to ease moving the steps around during the inevitable debates.
“Being a part of the event helped me understand how and why things are done in a certain way,” said Ernst Loejk, ES project leader and a relatively new employee to the business. “The process map we developed helped me to understand what to do and when to do it. I can now refer to the procedure flowchart and know what to do—or alternatively, who is responsible for what I need to know. Before the event, you had to try to find a way of solving it, or go around the office asking for help. The developed procedures will also make it easier for any ‘stand-in’ or new employee.”
The new process flow and procedures were documented in Microsoft Visio^. In true CI fashion, Ernst “learned by doing” as he populated the Microsoft Visio application after a short burst of hands-on training during the event. The resulting documented procedure was printed on A3 sheets and has been posted on the wall of the office—not put away in a drawer out of the sight of the people doing the job!
“This CI event has been a golden opportunity for our team to capture the learning we have gained over the last two years and consolidate that knowledge in a process chart, giving us a clear and visible understanding of how we conduct our business,” says ES Project Leader Soren Jensen. “The direct involvement and input from those carrying out the process in their daily work provides the right ownership and is for me the key to success.”
In addition to documenting the processes, the team introduced new improvements to the process, such as checklist templates to minimize errors and speed up the process. The documented, future-state process and newly introduced improvements could also be beneficial to other ES Operations globally—not just the Denmark ES Operation.
“All too often, established procedures and ways of doing things remain in people’s heads and we can become reliant on people rather than processes,” said Paul Ward, Manager for Strategic Sourcing and a co-facilitator during the event. “There will no doubt be similarities with these ES processes in all of our operations worldwide and we should share such information between the operations to establish best practices, standard ways of operating and establishing a baseline for ongoing continuous improvement.”
Brian Jamieson concludes, “using the CI process, we have been able to develop and produce a basic road map for all to follow. It will allow us to achieve consistency on how we manage our business. By the end of the week, you could see the ‘light’ coming on within the team and enthusiasm for the process system they had produced. There is no doubt in my mind that we—and our customers—will benefit from what the team have achieved during the CI event!”
^ Post-it is a trademark of the 3M. ^ Visio is a trademark of the Microsoft Corporation.
