The Adonis Blog
Establishing Business Excellence to Drive Productivity
Adonis Partners helped a manufacturing company address stagnant productivity growth and underperforming investments by standardizing operational excellence.
Benchmarking Sites and Plant Manager Effectiveness
Adonis Partners helped a renowned packaging company optimize plant management by identifying current barriers, resulting in an effective leadership team and sustainable performance improvements.
Coaching to a Continuous Improvement Mindset
Adonis Partners helped a packaging company combat significant operational flaws, resulting in a highly trained leadership team and a system designated for growth.
Michael Lachapelle
Senior Partner
Michael Foss
Managing Partner
Mark Stevens
Managing Partner
Mark Estep
Managing Partner
Reducing Cost by Optimizing the Supply Chain
Adonis Partners helped a dairy co-operative identify areas of improvement and facilitate change, resulting in over $5M in savings and leadership equipped to drive continuous improvement.
Establishing a Lean Foundation to Improve Operations
Adonis Partners helped a food and beverage distributor transform their corporate culture, resulting in cross-departmental collaboration and strong employee morale.
Designing and Implementing Business Excellence
Adonis Partners helped a logistics solutions provider develop and launch a continuous improvement plan, resulting in significant cost savings and high-level leadership growth.
Turning Negative EBITDA into a Positive
Adonis Partners transformed a food and beverage manufacturer’s unclear staff responsibilities and inefficient scheduling into a streamlined operation within a culture of accountability.
Establishing Optimal Manufacturing Order Quantity
Adonis Partners helped a beverage manufacturer align order sizes and improve current operations, resulting in optimized operational efficiency and consistent production.
Building Capabilities to Drive Continuous Improvement
Adonis Partners helped a leading beverage manufacturer implement Lean Six Sigma methodologies, resulting in a culture of continuous improvement to drive value.
Establishing a Culture of Continuous Improvement
Adonis Partners helped a biotechnology manufacturer instill a culture of continuous improvement, resulting in a significant increase in productivity and a leadership team trained for success.
Landon Weber
Executive Partner
Brad Baumunk
Director of Operations & Engagement Manager
Ramon Perdigao
Associate Partner
Hillary McCutcheon
Chief Marketing Officer
Jennifer Hurst
Chief Operating Officer
Bruce Lancaster
Senior Partner
Jim Robins
Senior Partner
Jack Nadeau
Senior Partner
Rubén Padrón
Senior Partner
Leveling Workflow to Achieve Breakthrough Output
Adonis Partners helped a biotechnology manufacturer standardize and streamline workflows, resulting in optimized productivity and a sustainable plan for achieving growth targets.
Navigating a Lean Approach in Information Technology
Adonis Partners helped a pharmaceutical manufacturer adopt lean and agile practices, allowing the company to identify the right problems to solve and their root causes, resulting in the elimination of significant process inefficiencies.
Marilyn Friedmann
Senior Partner
Van Quach
Senior Partner & Supply Chain Practice Lead
Shannon Barrett
Senior Partner
Ron Auza
Senior Partner & Engagement Manager
Michael Lachapelle
Senior Partner
Michael Foss
Senior Partner
Mark Stevens
Senior Partner
Joe Toriello
Senior Partner
Jim Robins
Senior Partner
Jeff Brubaker
Executive Partner
Jay Morwick
Senior Partner
Doug Lachance
Senior Partner
Darren Vanderburgh
Senior Partner
How to Get Immediate and Quantifiable Outcomes Through Lean
In a blog post my colleague Travis Ratnam wrote on the essence of lean transformation, he explored the benefits of this transformational management philosophy for achieving business excellence. Implementing lean practices can indeed deliver immediate and quantifiable outcomes, providing several benefits to a business.
The Value of Experience in Lean Transformation
Experience plays a crucial role in Lean transformation, which is why Adonis Partners focuses on partnering experts with our valued clients. Our team members have invaluable years of experience, coming from various backgrounds and industries.
14 Outcomes You Can Expect from Lean Transformation
In a blog post my colleague Travis Ratnam wrote on the essence of lean transformation, he explored the benefits of this transformational approach to business excellence. But we know through our years of experience at Adonis Partners that the outcomes of a lean transformation can vary depending on the specific context, industry, and goals of the organization.
9 Key Principles of Lean Transformation
A discovery assessment is a structured process that aims to gather information and insights broadly about an organizational function, or more specifically, about a known challenge or pain point.
3 Types of ISO Audits
The goal of ISO is to develop and coordinate industrial standards in areas ranging from data storage to manufacturing. In this article, we will give you a brief overview of the three types of ISO audits and how different audits are conducted.
Best Practices for Addressing Company Turnover
An organization’s success is inherently tied to its employees. The strength and resilience of an organization is dependent on the knowledge, skills, and dedication of its workforce. But high employee turnover can weaken the strength of the workforce, and that is why it’s critical to keep a pulse on employee culture and the rate of turnover in order to create an environment that will foster retention.
Identifying Wastes in a Process
The elimination of waste is a core principle behind a lean-driven organization’s efforts toward process excellence. Waste goes beyond tangible and visual defects at the end of the line – even when the “line” is one out of a transactional process; for example, errors in a form that cannot render a claim in an insurance company.
Leveraging FMEA for Risk Mitigation
FMEA, short for Failure Mode and Effects Analysis is a forward-thinking and powerful risk mitigation tool that Continuous Improvement practitioners use. It is a living document, used to anticipate and prevent failure from occurring.
Going to Gemba
Gemba has been widely used, for some time now, by Continuous Improvement (CI) practitioners around the globe. But what does it mean and how important is this concept in our continued journey towards operational excellence?
Using SIPOC in M&A
SIPOC stands for Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs, and Customers. It is a high-level process mapping tool utilized mainly to map out what goes in and out of a given process, and how the key steps to run the process are described.
Error Proofing with Technology
Also known as Poka-Yoke, from poka (inadvertent errors) and yokeru (to avoid), error proofing is the technique continuous improvement practitioners use to prevent errors that ultimately lead to defects in a process.
Transforming through Lean
A lean transformation can help companies to take their business practices and evolve them to a more refined state. These transformations empower teams to work together fluidly, eliminating potential issues and striving to provide consistent and high-level results for customers.
Coaching and Giving Feedback
A key component of running a successful business is being able to coach and provide feedback to employees. As a leader or manager, providing proper guidance for employees ensures they can succeed in the workplace and continue to improve.
Taking a Problem-Solving Approach
To run a business to its fullest potential, it’s important to ensure that your employees are engaged with their work and see the linkage to your company’s vision.
Engaging Employees
To run a business to its fullest potential, it’s important to ensure that your employees are engaged with their work and see the linkage to your company’s vision.
Catherine Bach
Associate Partner
Brian Pomerance
Senior Partner
Saving Money through Supply Chain Optimization
Supply chain optimization is all about getting the product into the customer’s hands when they want it while spending as little money as possible.
Sustaining CI Through Challenging Times
Continuous Improvement (CI) is difficult to maintain under normal circumstances, never mind when unexpected challenges arise. In this article, we will tackle some ways in which your business can continue to improve, even when times are tough.
TPM – What is It and Why You Should Care
TPM, or Total Productive Maintenance, is a maintenance program that combines equipment maintenance with the manufacturing process.
Brad Zak
Senior Partner
Bill Gray
Senior Partner
Ben O’Donnell
Senior Partner
Barry Murash
Executive Partner
Implementing Business Excellence
Adonis Partners collaborated with a revenue cycle management company to launch a Lean Six Sigma deployment, achieving significant operational improvements and cost savings.
Solving for a Critical Lever to Turn Around Business
Adonis Partners assisted a Medical Network in revitalizing its business, addressing declining performance and preparing for a profitable Private Equity exit.
Reducing Lead Time to Achieve Growth Goals
Adonis Partners assisted a national provider of telemedicine services in streamlining their credentialing process, drastically reducing the time required and enabling faster expansion to meet growth goals.
Al Lopez
Senior Partner
Building Scalable Processes to Increase Billable Hours & Improve Client Experience
Adonis Partners helped a rapidly growing behavioral healthcare services company streamline their scheduling systems, resulting in significant operational and financial improvements.
Travis Ratnam
Managing Partner
The Q-to-Q Kaizen Event: A New Twist on an Established Quality Concept
In the contact center, our resource time is limited and scarce. Yet, as continuous improvement-focused professionals, we strive to deliver quick wins through rapid improvement events—also known as Kaizen Events at Adonis Partners.
Spotlighting Charitable Organizations Close to Our Hearts
At Adonis Partners, we believe in the profound importance of giving back, not just during the holidays, but year-round.
Using 2 Proportions Test with SigmaXL
A 2 Proportions Test is a statistical procedure used to validate if two independent groups have significant differences in their proportions. We can use this test to compare, for example, if the proportion of one group is significantly higher than the other.
Using Histograms and Descriptive Statistics to Investigate Process Data
A simple summary of descriptive statistics is often the first step in investigating what the data have to say about the process being studied during process improvement initiatives.
Hypothesis Testing – Looking for Statistical Significance
Hypothesis Testing is a statistical procedure that looks into proving (or not) a constructed hypothesis.
Control Charts – Their Uses and the 4 Process States Within
Control charts were originally used in the deployment of Statistical Process Control (SPC) and later adopted into the Six Sigma framework.
Knowledge-Sharing’s Success Impact on Business Impact
The popular saying, “Knowledge is Power,” is very true when it comes to empowering a team to reach organizational goals – whether to drive improvements in processes or to help onboard a new employee.
Using Boxplots for Data Visualization and Process Insights
Through the visual representation of a dataset, boxplots are very informative and very useful when comparing distributions between two or more processes.
Hybrid Work Arrangements – Top 3 Applications for Success
The COVID-19 pandemic brought remote and hybrid work arrangements to the forefront of business development discussions. Now, three years after the first stay-at-home order during the pandemic, businesses are trying to find the “new normal” for what’s optimal in terms of working remotely versus working in an office setting.
Translating the Voice of Customer (VoC)
Customer focus drives questions for an organization to think strategically and align cross functional teams. Strategic questions such as Why are we in business? Where do we need to be in the future? and What is the source of our competitive advantage? can be better answered when we understand what customers value the most.
Project Management – Managing Risks for Success
One of the most important tasks in project management is identifying potential risks involved with the project. No project is without risks, but the role of project management is to minimize these risks as much as possible or avoid common pitfalls beforehand.
Baselining a Project
Nearly almost all Lean Six Sigma projects that experience a successful outcome are based on an understandable, quantifiable, agreed-upon, data-collectable baseline.
Analyzing the Happy Path
Customer focus drives questions for an organization to think strategically and align cross functional teams. Strategic questions such as Why are we in business? Where do we need to be in the future? and What is the source of our competitive advantage? can be better answered when we understand what customers value the most.
Make Project Management Practical
Managing a project is never easy and without proper management, projects are headed for tough times or failure. Our Adonis Partners team has first-hand experience in managing small and large projects.
Adapting to Visual Workplaces
Visual workplaces are a growing workflow style that focuses on helping teams to be more transparent with their work efforts.
Identifying & Prioritizing the Right Projects
Identifying and prioritizing projects are two of the most important components of running a successful organization. A focused, detailed plan of action will help you identify and prioritize the right projects to stay on track to achieve your goals.
Navigating Organizational Politics
Organizational politics involves performing influence tactics for the sake of organizational or personal interests. Organizational politics can impact all levels of a company, which is why it is important to learn how to navigate political situations and create positive outcomes instead.
Operational Task Management – Learning While Doing
“Working On the Business While In the Business” and “Learning While Doing” are concepts we often discuss and are heard in association with business management. These ideas emphasize the importance of balancing day-to-day operational tasks with strategic thinking and continuous learning to keep the business moving forward. But how do we do this in a controlled way that avoids distress, productivity loss or missing goals?
Using Control Charts
Control charts were originally used in the deployment of Statistical Process Control (SPC) and later on adopted into the Six Sigma framework.
Taking the Robot Out of the Human
As our world advances through the 4th Industrial Revolution, many companies are realizing that they can utilize technology to automate manual processes.
What is a Discovery Assessment?
A discovery assessment is a structured process that aims to gather information and insights broadly about an organizational function, or more specifically, about a known challenge or pain point.
3 Key Root Cause Analysis Techniques
Root Cause Analysis (RCA) is a process used to identify a problem or unexpected occurrence, such as a product not being received as expected. There are multiple ways to conduct a root cause analysis, but the ultimate aim is to improve the quality of the process or products and take systematic measures to become more effective in the future.
How to Overcome Challenges in an Acquisition to Achieve Management Success
You and your teams have spent countless hours building your investment thesis, completing your due diligence, arranging your financing, clearing the regulatory hurdles, and negotiating the final terms and conditions of your deal. Hopefully, you were also planning for a well-managed integration. Some of the key considerations listed below to plan for will ensure you start off on the right foot.
8 Things to Look for in a Process Improvement Practitioner
When looking for a process improvement practitioner, there are several key qualities and skills for consideration. Here are 8 key areas to focus on.
Knowing Your Data
Nearly almost all Lean Six Sigma projects that experience a successful outcome are based on an understandable, quantifiable, agreed-upon, data-collectable baseline.
Mapping Value Streams
Value stream mapping is a lean tool developed by Toyota to eliminate waste, thereby increasing value for the customer.
Leading Individuals through Change
While leaders often do a great job focusing on the technical aspects of launching a new system or process, it can be easy to lose focus on the fact that change is taking place on an individual level.
Keeping Processes Simple thru Standardization
Standardization is a process where rules are created and used to govern how people in an organization complete different tasks. In this article, we will go over different types of standardization and the benefits that simple processes have on your business.
Increasing Efficiency through PDCA
PDCA or the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle is a four-step model meant to be constantly repeated with the goal of continuous improvement of processes. Implementing the PDCA cycle helps teams avoid recurring mistakes and achieve better results.
Engaging Stakeholders Effectively
As a project manager, one of the most important aspects of your job is to engage with stakeholders; in order to do that, you must conduct a stakeholder analysis.
Walking in Your Customers’ Shoes
Most everyone has heard the old adage that you can’t really understand someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes. This is so very true when it comes to working with people to influence change and to create better outcomes for your customers – both internal and external.
5S: What is It and Why Do I Care?
5S is part of the Toyota Production System. 5S is meant to reduce waste and increase productivity by organizing spaces, keeping a clean work environment, and using visual cues to improve results.
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Adonis Partners
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