Lean Manufacturing Blog

Many small and mid-sized businesses (SMB) have taken notice of Commence Corporation (www. commence. com), a provider of on-premise and hosted web-based solutions designed specifically for this businesses sector. The company is gaining momentum and marketshare with Commence On-Demand, a suite of CRM (customer relationship management) applications that is deployed as software as a service (SaaS). In the current issue of The Machinist, manufacturing journalist Thomas R. Cutler profiles both Commence and the role of value stream mapping.

Value stream mapping (VSM) is perhaps the most worthwhile lean innovation because according to Lynne Hambleton it allows manufacturers to ask, “Where is value being added in the process and conversely, where does waste exist in the

process?” Ms Hambleton, author of Treasure Chest of Six Sigma Growth Methods, Tools, and Best Practices, suggests that VSM provides specific analytics including:

? Identify the value-add and non-value-add activities in a process and discover improvement and/or redesign opportunities

? Analyze where waste occurs in a process and develop a strategy to improve the process flow by eliminating the waste

? Make the processes work for a company, instead

Value stream mapping leads to technological breakthroughs obviously the elimination of waste and identifying the ideal flow changes the efficiency of an organization. However, far beyond eliminating rework by creating standardized work reducing inventory, or balancing workloads, a genuine competitive advantage is created through the implementation of a value stream mapping because the organization seeks technological breakthroughs.

According to Larry Caretsky, President of Commence CRM (customer relationship management), who has spent much of the last two years focusing on the industrial sector, “There seems to be a strong resistance on the part of many manufacturers to extend a lean process to understanding the customer-base. Basic tracking and data analysis of the customers’ buying patterns, satisfaction, and sales methodologies is such a natural extension of the value stream mapping process, yet often does not get beyond the plant floor to the sales and marketing arm of the enterprise. ” Only 36 percent of manufacturers surveyed in the TR Cutler, Inc. data reported using a formal CRM technology solution corroborating Caretsky’s assertions.

About Commence Corporation

Commence Corporation is a leading provider of Customer Relationship Management solutions. The company’s products are designed to provide growing businesses with flexible solutions that leverage the Web to offer an integrated platform for managing sales execution and customer service. Commence supports several thousand customers through a worldwide distribution network, with outlets in North and South America, Europe and Asia.