Marcos wrote: How can I change it? Is it useful to contract consultants?

Marcos,

It sounds that you really are at the beginning of the process-change process and that you recognise the potential but others in the company may not. May I suggest the following steps:

1. Clearly identify and quantify the outcomes (products, costs, volumes, quality, other corporate objectives, etc) that your existing processes are meant to provide.

2. Identify all the ways that your existing processes fall-short of these desired outcomes. This may be difficult so it might be valuable for you to benchmark your process performance against other energy companies (I assume you are in Energy) around the world who are doing similar activity (processes) to you.

3. Calculate a theoretical dollar value of the short-fall between what "could be" and "what is".

4. If the short-fall is substantial (more than say 5-10% of production through the process) then it probably indicates the need to re-engineer your processes (among other possible remedies). If the variation is relatively small, you might want to consider some quality circles from within the plant to deal with small performance improvement issues.

5. If the value of the short-fall is high, then the benefit you may achieve by solving your problem will, in all probability, exceed your cost of undertaking the change. This little calculation is termed your "value proposition for change".

6. There are now two issues you need to address: do you have the authority to affect change by yourself, and how do you make the process changes indicated.

7. If you are the CEO, then you need to develop a Value Proposition concept document that you must get your Board to approve in order for you to move to the next step. If you are not the CEO, then you need to sell the Value Proposition to the Chief Financial Officer, the Head of Manufacturing or similar, or the CEO.

8. It appears from what you have said that your organisation has not undertaken this process-change before. Therefore, I would recommend that you contemplate hiring consultants.

9. First step is to write a "Terms of Reference" document that captures what you want to achieve.

10. Next send the Terms of Reference and an invitation to tender to 5-10 experienced (in process change in the Energy industry) consulting companies.

11. Assess their responses in terms of experience, methodology, cost and similar successful projects. Talk to their references and don't take their work for anything. These companies are very "slick" and you must convince yourself that what they say is accurate and not just sales talk. (I say this with some authority as I'm a change consultant). If they provide a methodology which will enable you to undertake the change yourself then you can consider doing so, but you MUST appoint an external, experienced project manager with authority to "make it happen". If for any reason you can't appoint a external "facilitator", then appoint consultant with the best response to tender.

12. If you appoint a consulting company, make sure that "Knowledge Transfer" from the consultant to your staff is provided for. This will ensure that when you want to make the next process change, you will be in a better position (but no guarantee) to do it your self. Also make sure that they are kept to a strict time-frame and that part of their payment (say 10%-35%) is made only after the new process is operational, for say one month. Check VERY carefully the person they nominate as their Project Manager as this person is critical. Make sure that the Partners who will be involved in the sales presentation are actually involved in the project to manage the Quality Assurance aspects of the job - the Partner/s must commit to at least a once per week review of the Quality Plan and progress with you, the client, and the Project Manager. Partners tend to help "sell" the job, then they delegate the work to more junior staff - be warned.