Kendall Advisors LLC

Mike Hulbert Quoted in AFP Exchange Magazine – March Edition

admin — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 17:23:04 +0000

I was quoted extensively on Lean practices in Treasury organizations in the March issue of AFP Exchange. Members can access the article here. Others interested should contact me directly. The Association for Finance Professionals has more than 16,000 members from Treasury and Finance. Wolfgang Koestler, the CEO of FireApps, authored the article. FireApps offers a great product that helps organizations get better visibility into foreign exchange exposure and typically also drives deep process changes as companies fundamentally transform their foreign exchange processes.

What is Lean?

admin — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 19:01:29 +0000

Lean seems to mean something different to everyone these days. None of this is good for the practice of Lean. Read my thoughts on what Lean really means on my Lean and ERP blog. The link is here.

Launched leananderp.com to Fill a Critical Information Gap

admin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:54:21 +0000

About six months ago, I was looking for some information on the web and realized that there was very little information about implementing Lean along with systems, particularly ERPs. In fact, several things I read were just terrible. For some reason, many Lean people think that all systems are bad and do their best to ignore them. This is at their own peril and has drastically limited the potential impact of Lean in many businesses. I am also including a focus on Lean in supporting organizations. Another area which has not received enough attention but is a critical area of need for many companies. I am just getting the content filled up so keep checking back or just sign up for the feed.

Here is the link.

Planning Second Working Capital Improvement Conference

admin — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:33:58 +0000

Based on the success of the Austin conference, I am beginning to plan a second conference for the New York area focused on Working Capital Management Focused on Inventory. We always say that you inventory is telling you where the problems are in your supply chain. The conference will offer straight forward approaches to uncover the root causes lurking behind too much inventory and shortages.

Speaking at Monterrey Manufacturing Conference – September 30 – October 1, 2009

admin — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 15:52:55 +0000

More information to follow on agenda and participants. I will be speaking at this conference in Mexico at the end of September.

Mike

Speaking at AME Conference – September 9-10 (Austin, Texas)

admin — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 15:50:17 +0000

LeanDNA is a co-sponsor of this conference and I will be speaking about supply chain and working capital best practices. The official announcement from AME is below with a link to registration.

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The Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME) is pleased to sponsor “How Leading Companies are Achieving Supply Chain Excellence” on September 9-10, 2009 in Austin, Texas. The seminar is designed for C-level executives, mid- to senior-level managers, and all professionals involved in their company’s improvement process, including financial managers.

Participants will:

See and hear executives from world-class lean manufacturers-including Dresser Wayne and DJO Surgical—talk about their strategy and tactics for optimizing inventory and thus extracting working capital from their operations.
Learn how Lean is being deployed, managed, and measured as a global corporate strategy.
Access an online Lean Management System to assess individualized working capital opportunities
Take part in a facility tour to see how best practices have been implemented

Learn more and register for this event at link

Partnership with LeanDNA

admin — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:57:50 +0000

LeanDNA has added Mike Hulbert as a partner. This leading Lean software company has developed a suite of SaaS products which help implement Lean operating improvements. The software is already in use at several Global 500 clients driving significant results. Check out the web site for more information, LeanDNA.

The Ops Guru blog is live!

admin — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:54:50 +0000

I have recently started a blog on operations improvement topics. Take a look and leave feedback. The link is included under the partners item

Combining Insight and Execution

admin — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 19:32:41 +0000

Kendall Advisors LLC was founded to provide targeted, senior leadership to address critical operating issues. This is based on 15+ years of experience improving complex global companies with front to back improvements (sales, operations, finance, and IT) leveraging Lean, Six Sigma, re-engineering, and thoughtful alignment of systems, especially ERPs.

Insight – Partner level advisor who can roll up their sleeves and get into the details of your problems including financials, processes, people, and systems

Execution – A senior leader who can partner with you to lead implementation of change in many forms including operating model transformation, continuous improvement, system implementation, and many more

All too often, advisors and consulting firms only bring once piece of the change equation. How do you know that you are delivering insight if you have never implemented the changes recommended? Likewise, if you have only implemented other people’s plans, how do you know you are delivering the best solution?

Project Success Factors

admin — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 19:31:28 +0000

From many years of driving major transformations and smaller continuous improvements, the following project success factors stand out. While appearing simple, these are often difficult to achieve.

Enlist key staff in the process – Finding the staff at any level which have keen insights into current performance and the capability to lead change is critical – and starts the first day of the project. It is also important to be open minded as new star performers often emerge from these teams
Keep teams as small as possible – Bigger teams = bigger overhead. It not only costs more from a staffing perspective, it can also lead to slower and sub-optimal results.
Start at the top and drill all the way down – Starting with the top level financials and existing measures, a rapid and iterative drill-down assessment is essential to find problems that are not already known. Frequent reviews enable key staff to identify new insights
Truly leverage best practices – Bring actual experiences to the table which can be applied in your organization. This also includes ample business experience to help avoid “rat holes” which cost time and money.
Ensure that Information Systems are Aligned with Changes – Any improvements will be short lived if they are not well supported within the systems that are used to run the business