Project Manthan at Tata Chemicals

By

Mr. B. Sudhakar, Chief Human Resources Officer, Tata Chemicals

Project Manthan was initiated at Tata Chemicals Ltd. (TCL), in December 2001 as a response
to the several environmental challenges it faced. TCLs competitive advantage till the mid 90s
was based largely on the availability of captive raw material reserves of limestone, extensive
salt works (37,000 acres of land), early entry into soda ash and branded salt and the
availability of skilled personnel (the Babrala project was setup by in-house talent). However,
TCL, which was thriving in a sellers market with insulated economy, import restrictions & huge
tariff barriers (import duty as high as 150 %) started facing a tumultuous wave of change in
the later half of 1990, thanks to the economic liberalization policies of the Government of
India.
TCLs key businesses (soda ash, urea and packaged edible salt) faced new challenges
during this period. The soda ash business felt the adverse impact of overcapacity in the
domestic industry, threat from imports and price-cost squeeze. Exports were not an attractive
proposition for the approximately 30% excess capacity of the industry. Price realization from
exports was significantly lower than the domestic market. Import duties were being
continuously slashed bringing down the tariff protection and making imports increasingly
competitive. (Import duty was cut from 38.5% to 20% in April 2001 and was likely to be further
lowered to 10%). The normal price-cost squeeze, a phenomenon in the chemical industry,
was also playing its part. (In Western Europe, for instance, during the period 1986-94, prices
dropped by 1.2% per annum driven by new entrants, improved processes and operational
excellence. Prices on the other hand were creeping up by 0.6% per annum driven primarily by
labor and energy costs). The backward integration by Nirma (a customer turned competitor),
and the entry of new players led to overcapacity in the domestic market and created a further
downward pressure on the prices of soda ash.
The Government of India tightly controlled farm gate price of urea. Level of subsidy provided
by the Government was critical for determining profitability in this business. Until 2002-03,
Retention Price Scheme (RPS) governed the industry practice. The RPS provides for a
guaranteed return on capital employed. A movement away from assured returns to
concessions was expected where costs no longer remained passing through in nature. In
April 2003, the government introduced the group-wise concession scheme. Under the
scheme all plants were grouped based on plant vintage and feedstock. Norms for energy
consumption had been tightened. The government was further committed to de-regulation
within a five-year time frame. The producers, thus, had to focus on cost competitiveness for
survival and growth.
Packaged edible salt saw the entry of new players in the domestic market and there was
fierce competition from the local players who were driving price points lower in their efforts to
gain market share.
Cost leadership across the product chain, thus, emerged as a critical strategic imperative to
maintain and grow market shares and profits. A consulting group of International repute was

invited to advise the company on this regard. Project Manthan was the result of this
deliberation. The term Manthan referred to the churning of the sea to extract amrit
(symbolically the fruits of labour)
In addition to Project Manthan, a series of initiatives were also planned to regain cost
competitiveness, improve customer focus, quality, safety and innovation practices across the
main business divisions of the company. The main elements of the strategy were, to focus on
core businesses exit non-core areas, aggressively defend market shares, achieve cost
leadership across the chain, restructure marketing for greater customer focus, service and
quick response, grow through new products, acquisitions and diversification, lead through
people and knowledge management.
The Manthan Process
Project Manthan was a structured, time bound, team based program with top management
support and a bottom-up approach, which used the creativity and energy of the employees of
Tata Chemicals to impact the companys bottom line with minimal investment and in the
shortest possible time. More specifically, it aimed to achieve dramatic improvement in the
operational performance and build capability for continuous improvement in areas of
Manufacturing, Purchasing, Marketing and Supply Chain.
On the purchasing front, the Project aspired 10-15% cost reduction with 3-5% ongoing
improvements by understanding supplier economics developing sourcing strategy for all
purchases based on criticality of purchase and leveraging e-PSM tools, for e.g., Reverse
Auctions. A rigorous bottom-up programme to channelize organizations knowledge and
experience to generate and implement ideas that significantly improve operations was
targeted at the manufacturing front. The micro-marketing front aspired for 5 8%
improvement in return on sales by up-grading the customer mix to a more profitable mix,
understanding the importance of non-price attribute for each customer and conducting
competitive assessment on these attributes and adopting key account management for large
and profitable customers as targets. Taking an end-to-end approach to optimize the system,
developing processes to ensure effective co-ordination and developing organization structure
were major objectives for the supply chain front. Individual projects were chosen in these
areas based on three considerations: high improvement potential, the possibility for
immediate savings and the opportunity to build skills in employees to run a continuous
improvement programme.
In line with its objectives of overall performance improvement that was both dramatic and
continuous within a short period of time, Project Manthan had three critical processes. One, a
tightly time based problem solving process, two, a bottom-up idea generation process with
middle manager/staff cooperation, and three, stretch targets for cost reduction in each unit,
and a detailed idea implementation process. The first cycle of Project Manthan was planned
to cover the entire Mithapur operations in a 12-month period. Each cycle was, in turn,
composed of 3-4 waves that addressed different well-defined cost and revenue
components. A Wave was divided into four phases and the duration of each wave was 12 to
14 weeks. Each wave had to be rigorously followed by an implementation plan to ensure
follow-up and monitoring of performance against agreed-upon savings targets. The
programme was expected to sustain over time and become a method for continuous
improvement through successive yearly cycles across these improvement areas. (The
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structure of the Manthan Team and the role of various members in the Project are shown in
the Appendix).
Project Manthan and Organizational Change at TCL
At TCL, Project Manthan delivered significant cost savings and that helped the company to
survive amidst rough competition and huge environmental challenges. But, the Project was
also a major vehicle for changing the perspectives and managerial behaviors at TCL. Mr. D.K.
Sunder, GM - Commercial Services observed that:
Project Manthan motivated us to set aspirational targets, follow fact based,
time bound, and collaborative problem solving approaches. The aspirational
targets prompted us to stretch ourselves and make our commitments to
achieve them publicly. We could not go back from there. We had to help each
other to deliver our goals. In the process, we saw functional silos built over
years getting dismantled, young and old sharing and learning from each other
and hierarchies giving way to expert influence. People started talking about
their activities in business terms. People out here no longer talk how much
coal do they handle but what their total cost of ownership is. This creation of
new vocabularies, which infused business sense among people, helped a lot
in making this project a success and infused new energy at the work place.
Another senior leader described how the senior management approached this initiative to
ensure the achievement of its goals.
At the top table, we were clear that Manthan was not only a cost reduction
initiative, but a major enabler of organizational transformation at TCL. We
expected Manthan to create a shift in the mindset of employees. We also
believed that through this process we should develop a critical mass of
employees with greater understanding of the business that can lead the other
change initiatives we had flamed.
Our consulting partners brought in a robust methodology. The senior team
demonstrated their commitment by actively engaging with Manthan teams by
investing considerable time and effort to challenge and validate the findings of
the Manthan teams. It was important for us to institutionalize this as a
mechanism to improve our people and process capabilities.
Accordingly, significant efforts were made to ensure close and consistent top management
attention and support for the initiative. The entire top management team was present at the
Mithapur plant to launch the initiative. A detailed communication policy was drawn to gain the
participation, support and commitment from key stakeholder groups to the initiative. Key
communication messages were identified leader wise prior to the communication meetings. .
It was considered important that the messages from top were unambiguous and consistent.
The need for the initiative, its objectives and coverage were visually displayed in different
parts of the organization. General meetings were organized where the MD and top
management addressed the people and stressed the need for Project Manthan and its
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success. Manthan, the quarterly newsletter was published to circulate the progress of the
initiative across the organization.
Having communicated extensively about the need, scope and objectives of the initiative, it
became critical that the projects are delivered in the early phases as committed. It was
realized that subsequent credibility for the initiative would be based on the results of the
Project in the early phases. Hence most efforts were made to select the people to drive the
project. In fact, leaders of the first phase were handpicked by the top management team
based on their judgment of the persons understanding of the business, willingness to change
and lead change, credibility in the system, and leadership potential. The participation in the
Project was thus considered by the employees of TCL at large as recognition of ones
potential and achievement. Managers from Babrala were also invited to participate in the
project, as there were plans to roll out the initiative there too based on the experience of
Mithapur. In addition to twelve managers from TCL, two consultants led the first wave of the
project from the consulting firm advising the company and two consultants from the strategic
consulting division of the Tata Group. The consultants role was to build people and process
capabilities and facilitate the process and they withdrew after the second wave leaving TCL
employees to drive the initiative thereafter. Similar attention was paid in the early phases to
the selection of projects as well. Impact on cost savings, feasibility and opportunities for
developing people capabilities were the criterion used for the selection of projects. The first
wave, spread over four months, had five teams with fuel purchase, coke purchase, packaging
and Total Operating Performance (TOP) at boiler and marketing as the projects. The first
wave generated (fifty two) syndicated ideas worth cost saving of Rs.45.77 crore and this
helped garner confidence in the usefulness of the methodology and capability of the people.
Participants in various phases reported substantial gains from the Project. Better
understanding of the business processes, its cost base, and competitive standards were
direct benefits of the participation in the Project. A member of the Manthan team from TOP
(Total Operating Performance) at the MuW project recalled:
It was great to understand the details of the production processes and their
cost base. I learnt what quantity of steam, brine, power and other raw
materials were required for producing salt, how much it cost to produce a ton
of salt and how could it be brought down. It was a totally new experience. I
had never looked at cost aspects in so much detail earlier. I always had a
production view and missed the financial angle completely.
As part of the process, the project members sought best practices in the same or similar
industry by paying direct visit to other organizations and scanning the literature. To their
surprise, most of them found that opportunities for learning were available in organizations
closer to Mithapur with regard to processes and technologies. A significant realization of this
exercise was that the members got first hand exposure to a changing world that instilled in
them a deep need to re-examine their work practices.
This, however, was not an easy target. The teams had to achieve cost saving targets, which
were aspirational in nature, and there was no provision for additional financial investments.
As a result, a large number of unconventional ideas were tried and tested out successfully. A
team member of TOP at the brine path project recalled:
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We went against the conventional wisdom by suggesting the cooling of the

mother liquor in a crystallizer as against heating it. A large number of
employees in the organization and a member of the steering committee were
of the opinion that it was not feasible. However, we succeeded in garnering
the support of the manager of the soda liquor plant. Results from experiments
conducted in the pilot plant supported our argument. A retired employee of the
plant also helped by giving us leads of the alternative methods adopted by
other plants for similar processes. Finally the idea was accepted for
implementation.
For the experimentation of this nature to succeed in gaining support, the project members had
to convince concerned departmental members and the steering committee. It was a norm to
present the case with substantial data, evidence, appropriateness and usefulness. This
practice not only brought them closer to contemporary business processes but also helped
them to extend the current understanding in the field. For example, in case of the fuel
purchase project, the idea of using pet coke as a substitute for coal in the boiler met with stiff
resistance. This was because of the problems of neutralizing sulphur. A member of the
project described:
The plant owner and operators were apprehensive about a drop in efficiency
of the boiler if substitutes were used. They said that if we found anybody is
using pet coke in our type of boiler (CFBC) then they would also try it. Our
team first contacted another organization in a similar industry and collected all
related information. We brought a team of experts from that organization to
Mithapur. They gave a very good presentation and references where pet coke
was used in our type of boiler. From their presentation our operations team
got the hint that dozing with limestone can neutralize sulphur. We started
discussions with boiler manufacturer and experts for the best possible way to
neutralize sulphur. Finally we found out that a suggestion for using pet coke in
CFBC boiler could convince the operation team for syndication of our idea.
Operations were to start with a fuel mix using 2% pet coke with coal and
based on trial performance they would gradually increase the percentage of
pet coke in the fuel mix. On purchase front, we consolidated the total
requirement and negotiated fresh terms. Overall we could get a total cost
saving of Rs.23 crores over the baseline cost from this idea.
Working together as a team was critical for the success of many projects. They divided the
tasks amongst themselves and supported each other. A member from the Manthan team that
worked on TOP at the power project explained:
There was an idea to reduce the pressure of the de-aerator of the power plant
and save on cost by lowering the energy consumption. This was questioned
by the Steering Committee who concluded that it was not feasible. The team
had to come back quickly with answers. Roles were quickly divided among the
team members. One member searched for technical literature on the subject
in the library and from different vendors of the equipment. Another searched
the web for information on the technical literature and work practices in
different organizations. The third member worked on collecting data from trials
and working on the computations that were required to adapt it to our
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equipment. Although the fourth member was not a technical expert in the area
he pitched in with support wherever required. The combined efforts of the
team succeeded in overcoming what we saw as a challenge. Finally, the
Steering Committee was convinced, and the idea got syndicated and has now
been implemented.
Respect to different points of view and trust in mutual strengths helped different team to make
their projects effective. A member from one of the project team recalled:
We had a difficult target of 40% reduction of cost in the area of maintenance.
One of our team members gave us an idea for cost reduction by putting timers
and level props on pumps. The team, although initially skeptical, decided to
follow the lead and soon realized that there would actually be savings in
energy cost. This helped in building trust and faith in our capability.
Subsequently he gave the idea of putting thermocouples at the point of kiln
discharge so that the material was discharged at the right temperature,
retaining thermal energy in the kiln. This led to a substantial saving in our
project.
Members of different project teams believed that ideas, views and help from entire crosssections of employees (including ex-employees), vendors, customers and other sources of
information like technical literature had helped them in achieving their cost saving targets.
Participants did not necessarily agree with the ideas they received but all ideas were treated
with respect. Each idea received for the project was carefully documented along with the logic
for the same. Even ideas that had earlier failed were taken into account to understand why
they failed. The entire set of ideas was then distributed among the members and each
member pursued a set of ideas. Later, the team debated all ideas at length and the
coordinator ensured that all aspects of an idea were looked into. This thorough homework
often helped to convince the Steering Committee that the ideas could be syndicated (agreed
to be taken up for implementation). Differences among team members were resolved through
discussion. Participants in the team that worked on TOP at the power plant project recalled
their experience:
At times there were differences of opinion in the team. For example in case of
the induced draft fan for the boiler there was a difference of opinion regarding
possible improvement in efficiency. Through discussions, we found that
actually the difference was due to lack of shared understanding of the
framework. To overcome this, the fan was taken to the boiler and the
efficiency was measured, first internally and later by a third party to arrive at a
conclusion.
Issues that remained unresolved, even after discussions, were taken to the project mentors or
Steering Committee. In one instance this happened in the TOP at the Soda Ash Kiln project.
A member described the instance:
There was an instance when I was not convinced and did not agree with the
team. The facilitators were suggesting that the lime recovered from the grid
(which was otherwise disposed off) be used to fill wasteland. I was convinced
that the sheer logistics of implementation would be extremely difficult to handle
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and as such the saving that was being expected would not come through. The
idea had been tried once in the past and failed and there was no change in the
process now being suggested. The subject was discussed at length with
senior managers and in the Steering Committee and was eventually dropped.
There were times when the team had to be absolutely hands-on. The Manthan team that
worked on TOP at the port project recounted:
There was no internal expertise available on port management. Gathering
information and understanding the various charges of the port was the starting
point of understanding the cost structure. We also needed to understand the
details of the operations. We visited the port and went on a boat to mid-sea to
understand the ship loading / unloading process. Employees out there were
worried that we might fall or get hurt.
Separate office space was created to house the Project Manthan department with advanced
computing machines, telecommunication and office administration facilities. This had
facilitated healthy competition on syndication of ideas as well as sharing of expertise and
experiences. A member of the Project recalled:
There was an element of competition amongst the teams to see who was
progressing faster towards their goals. Every week the cost accountant
working with us would put up an A4 sheet on which the value of savings of
ideas generated by each team was noted. The weekly caucus to review
progress with the other Manthan teams gave us an opportunity to understand
how they were doing and what approaches they had adopted so that we could
pick up anything that we had missed. During our wave TOP at MUW project,
the limestone purchase project and the logistics project were working
simultaneously. There was a great deal of helpful interaction as well as
competition to reach our targets. We gave our inputs on the purchase of
limestone suppliers, quality and cost. In turn we got ideas on calling experts,
talking to vendors specially those situated outside the country and
instrumentation. Generally the teams motivated each other
As the projects started to stabilize as a mechanism to re-examine various business
processes, the senior management team decided to revamp the safety practices in the
organization through a Manthan project. But the Manthan methodology was not appropriate to
this task. However, the sheer pride of being a part of Manthan motivated the team members
to develop an equally robust system to redesign the safety practices. A member of the project
explained:
The safety department had only five members. Among them, only one
member had any prior exposure to safety practices and the others were from
different plants on deputation. The group pulled out all accident reports that
had happened in Mithapur for last ten years. The causes of these accidents
were analyzed and categorized. A 2X2 matrix was created to map major
accidents and the behavior of people. It revealed that 76% of accidents were
caused because of unsafe actions and practices of people in the plant. It was
found that before any reportable accident occurs there could be as many as
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600 near miss incidents Behaviors and practices need to be changed in order
to ensure safety. We realized that if we could capture near-miss incidents and
proactively address them, the rate of reportable accidents would come down
drastically. The team explored how other companies in similar industries
manage safety. We found that DuPont had developed an interesting manual.
With the help of the Gujarat Safety Council (GSC) a behavior based training
module was developed in the local language. Two hundred employees were
trained on this module for a day by the GSC faculty. The lessons were taught
through interesting behavioral exercises. These 200 employees later trained
another 1700 employees in four-hour modules within a month and seven days.
In addition, several work practices were developed in collaboration with
different departments and had been implemented
The success of this project prompted TCL to examine township maintenance and few
administrative areas through Manthan projects. The attempt with these projects was not to
reduce costs in these areas but to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of work practices
and processes. In certain cases, in fact, additional investments were made to achieve the
improvements.
Project Manthan was formally launched on 7th October 2002 in Babrala. A general meeting
was held where Mr. Momin, VP - Manufacturing of Chemicals from Mithapur spoke about
Manthan and its progress at Mithapur. Participants who took part in the first wave at Babrala
e.g. a Manthan team that worked on TOP at ammonia had participated in a Manthan project
in Mithapur and brought back the learning with them to Babrala.
The Fall-Outs of Manthan
Although the Project Manthan was highly instrumental in achieving operational performance
improvements at TCL by enhancing cost consciousness, upgrading problem-solving skills,
strengthening collaboration and enlarging perspectives, it was fraught with several issues
right from its inception. As head of HR my observations are:
Project Manthan was a major social intervention in a system that had an
illustrious history of technological and market leadership. Forgiveness as a
value was regarded high and there was also a larger degree of tolerance for
under performance. We wanted to nurture a culture or performance with
fairness as an important value.
Project Manthan had opened up the people of TCL to an outside world that is
changing rapidly with advances in technological and operational
improvements. It indeed inspired them to re-examine their work process and
behaviors, but this was never smooth sailing for us.
In our effort to ensure that the Project delivered in the early phases, we picked
up the brightest talent in the company to lead the programme. However, on
hindsight, I believe there were sentiments of resentment among those who
were not selected but who believed that they had equal potential and
achievement. This had created a subtle but significant rupture in the social
fabric of our organization.
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We had experienced very little resistance for the need for Project Manthan at
the thought level from our people. But we faced significant resistance when it
came to the implementation of ideas generated through Manthan. A large
number of managers were not willing to let go by their preferred practices and
approaches. It took some time for the Project members, who were from
different functions and different levels in hierarchy, to gain credibility among
the departmental heads.
Recognizing and rewarding the performance of Manthan efforts was another
area where we faltered in the beginning. Typically a Manthan project which
lasted for three to four months, ended with the submission of a set of ideas
signed off by both, the concerned departmental head and the project
members. These ideas were largely generated through mechanisms like
brainstorming and suggestion schemes wherein employees from different
departments had given their suggestions to achieve the project goals. And the
onus of implementing those ideas and realizing business value were rested
upon the concerned departmental head. But our reward and recognition
system was initially restricted to members of the project team. This contributed
to a feeling among our employees that those who really made the project
successful were excluded from the attention of the senior management team
and this in turn, affected the active participation and contribution of a major
group negatively. Post this initial experience we made relevant changes in the
subsequent waves.
Another Senior Executive maintained that at the third year since its inception, Project
Manthan faced a fresh set of challenges:
There were significant opportunities for improving our business processes
and work practices when Manthan was launched and we rightly achieved
significant cost saving by addressing them. But as we went along, different
Manthan teams to further improve our processes revisited the same units and
practices and this had resulted in a situation where achieving substantial
savings with little or no investment was extremely difficult.
We had also planned to cascade and institutionalize this approach in the
organization. Accordingly people in the lower ranks were assigned the
responsibility of leading Manthan after its initial phases. However, this was
perceived as relegation of senior management interest in the Project and had
affected the rigor of the processes in various projects. Review and monitoring
mechanisms had also become weak.
The Road Ahead
Mr. Prasad Menon, the then Managing Director at Tata Chemicals, had to make a
presentation in the upcoming board meeting regarding the future course of Project Manthan.
He realized that the Project had exposed over 100 managers to the core concepts of
continuous improvement and established a problem solving process for continuous
improvement in addition to the significant cost savings. However, going forward required
some key questions to be addressed.
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He observed that the gap between aspirational targets set and their achievement was
widening. Capturing the full value of planned ideas should thus be an important question in
the board meeting. Although the implementation of ideas was formally incorporated in the
goal sheet of departmental members, the implementation of ideas typically required
coordination from multiple stakeholders. As the organization had initiated multiple change
projects and different members had formal responsibilities for their execution, the
implementation of Manthan ideas turned out as additional responsibilities, for which most of
them found little time. That must have had a negative impact on the timely implementation of
proposed action plans. Also, no major investments had been undertaken yet in the Project.
Should TCL consider of investment plans for upgrading technological infrastructure of the
company to crack the remaining tough nuts?
A set of people in the organization believed that, as like any other product in the market,
Project Manthan had reached a phase where it required close and serious attention either to
recall or reposition it. Mr. Menon wondered whether Manthan had reached a phase where it
could no longer add any significant value.
Project Manthan was one among a series of programmes that were initiated to enable the
transformation of TCL to a globally competitive company. There had been a fragmentation of
senior management attention and efforts due to such multiple initiatives. This had influenced
the motivation level of the people associated with Manthan adversely. The interface of
multiple improvement programs with each other emerged as another critical question that
required detailed attention.
. Mechanisms to facilitate the transfer of learning and best practices from Mithapur to these
locations had to be identified. An attendant question was how to cascade the Manthan
methodology to individual departments in the company? Should there be a department for
Manthan at all? If so, what should be their role in the coming years?

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Appendix
Organization of Manthan & Key Roles
The apex-driving organization for Manthan is the Steering Committee. The daily activities are
amongst the various teams are coordinated by a programme and a coordinator. Usually four
to five teams work in a wave and each team has at least three members a unit leader, a
senior facilitator and a facilitator. The role to be played by everyone is clearly defined.
Role of Steering Committee
To provide support, guidance and direction as required by
! Continually communicating the importance of the TOP program.
! Providing inputs for baselines and targets and ensuring focus on major business and
technical issues early on in the process.
! Review progress and suggest valid course correction where required; address key
obstacles and problems
! Review all ideas recommended by the units and approve, reject or recommend further
study
Own overall program results and ensure success by
! Energize the organization for change, primarily by establishing personal contact with unit
leaders through the wave and during implementation
! De-bottleneck and push implementation for units in ones area
! Provide resources (manpower, materials, funds) to enable implementation
Role of Program Leader
Leading & coordinating the TOP program and ensure that it is on track by
! Ensuring selection of appropriate units, unit leaders and facilitators
! Facilitating the process by removing hurdles and resolving issues at all levels
! Monitoring implementation and actively removing barriers to implementation
Provide a link with upper management
! Educate upper management on process and communicate progress
! Act as a liaison to upper management and to the Steering Committee and help identify
and resolve issues
Role of Coordinator
Provide problem solving and process support across units
! Ensure appropriate problem structuring in all units and clarity with respect to the overall
picture even while diving into detail

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! Assist problem-solving as and when required removing any obstacles faced by the unit
leader and facilitators
! Ensure thoroughness in idea generation and evaluation
! Help obtain benchmarks and other external information
! Play facilitator role wherever required; challenge biases and preconceptions and ensure
quality of end products. This includes identifying key opinion makers and convincing them
of the worthiness of specific ideas if required. Support the unit leader and facilitators in
senior management discussions
Provide synergy across units and a link with the overall program
! Ensure communication among units and synergy in problem structuring and solving
! Ensure continuity between previous units and current units and help identify issues for
future units
! Provide a link with CIG and the overall program savings
! Participate actively in select implementation areas
Coach team members
! Coach and develop unit leaders and facilitators towards better performance in their roles
Role of Unit Leader
Lead and drive the effort to identify savings
! Develop a clear picture of the units boundaries, organizational structure, process flows
and cost base
! Take stretched targets confidently, using TOP norms
! Generate and evaluate improvement ideas by involving all members of the department
and others with knowledge or information.
! Tap all technical resources the department has access to
! Be intellectually honest and objective in assumptions and evaluations
! Communicate to and syndicate with all relevant persons
! Present results to the Steering Committee for approval
! Have complete ownership of unit results
Lead and drive the effort to ensure implementation and accrual of savings
! Be realistic in KPI movement forecasts
! Ensure that every idea has an implementation team consisting of an idea owner and task
owners
! Keep in touch with CIG throughout implementation
! Ensure that implementation happens on time and in a sustainable manner and that
savings are delivered
Role of Senior Facilitator
Be Godfather for the unit in the department
! Spend adequate time with the unit and provide access to departmental resources and
data
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! Identify relevant issues upfront and assist the unit team in problem-structuring
! Provide problem-solving support to the unit leader
Ensure thoroughness in idea evaluation
! Ensure objectivity in evaluation
! Provide realism and maturity
! Evaluate risks and communicate them to the team
! Help the team communicate the worthiness of ideas as well as risks associated to the
departmental head
! Help resolve issues during syndication and remove bottlenecks in implementation
Role of Facilitator
Provide problem-solving and process support to the unit leaders
! Support and train the unit leader on the TOP process
! Help the unit leader develop the units boundaries, process flows and cost base
! Help in obtaining benchmarks and other external information
! Organize data collection, idea generation, idea evaluation and implementation planning
! Help the unit leader manage timelines
! Assist the unit leader with presentations
! Attend select implementation reviews and provide inputs where required
Challenge biases and preconceptions
! Pick up and grasp quickly the essential technical features of the unit
! Encourage setting of stretched targets
! Stimulate creative idea generation, drawing on experiences with previous units
! Encourage unit leader to maximize savings potential and minimize risks associated with
ideas
Ensure quality and thoroughness in all efforts and end products
! Ensure involvement of all concerned persons and adequate communication
! Network with the organization to access all resources
! Be intellectually honest in idea evaluation and ensure conservatism
! Check assumptions and challenge them where required
! Work to identify cross-functional issues and opportunities, and address them appropriately
! Interface with other units, where relevant, for synergy

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