Well integrated logistics processes underpin high performance industrial companies. L&SC Strategies' involvement with G&S Engineering Services (G&S) illustrates this point. Based in Mackay Queensland, G&S delivers professional asset management services to address the maintenance, construction and manufacturing needs of their clients in the resources, infrastructure development, materials handling and processing industries.

With 30 years experience serving the mining industry and a long list of impressive Awards, G&S can attribute this success to their professional staff and continued focus on customer service improvement.

To realise their strategic vision to achieve customer service excellence parallel to rapid business growth, G&S engaged L&SC Strategies to facilitate the delivery of improved levels of customer logistics service to external customers and internal engineering crews. L&SC Strategies achieved this goal by improving integration of the business functions through improved processes and decision making, leading to lower costs and higher productivity, especially in the warehousing and storage functions.

Project Manager Rob Seidel (General Manager, Finance & Administration), remarked "Embarking on a project of this magnitude required significant logistics expertise and we were confident that L&SC Strategies would enable us to get the job done".

The big picture. To identify significant logistics process improvement opportunities, 26 G&S Engineers, Estimating, Project Management and Logistics staff were involved in the Big Picture Mapping Workshop and Current State Process Mapping Workshops. The ‘big picture mapping' workshop involved mapping the physical and information flows along with the interfaces and transactions between the functional interfaces through the ERP System and any issues.

Rob's comments illustrate the benefit of the workshop. "The ‘big picture' workshop highlighted the different perspectives within the business in regards to cost containment objectives, as well as the need to significantly increase our logistics capacity to cope with increasing business growth."

Process improvement. The Current State Process Mapping Workshops facilitated by L&SC Strategies, allowed a more in-depth review of processes by the Project Team. Processes reviewed included Project Planning, Tool and Gear List, Consumables List, Mobilization and De-Mobilization. The workshops allowed critical issues and opportunities to be identified.

Future State Process Mapping Workshops allowed the Project Team to focus on converting opportunities into process improvements. Figures 1 and 2 provide an insight into the impact of improving processes.

Figure 1: Total Processes              Figure 2: Function processes

Process improvement covered three broad areas: tool and gear list, mobilisation and de-mobilisation. Prior to reviewing there were 132 process steps or distinct activities in the work flow. After reviewing, the processes the number of constituent activities was reduced to 81, a 39% reduction. This reduction in processes was not simply redefining processes and including a greater number of tasks within each process, but a genuine reduction in work required. For instance, for tool and gear lists, process improvement involved greater use of the Business Information System (BIS) for compiling and tracking requirements. The Future State processes will substantially improve the productivity of the Logistics team and their ability to service the engineering teams in the field in a timely manner.

Logistics equipment review. The other aspect of improving the Logistics Performance is concerned with the provision of equipment for the Logistics Staff to use in conjunction with their new processes. As such, a Logistics Equipment Research was conducted, and a Logistics Equipment Layout and Site Plan were produced. This information was compiled into a Capital Requirement. Then L&SC Strategies assisted G&S with the development of a Business Case and Implementation Plan, which is now being acted on.

Whilst significant capital expenditure is required to upgrade logistics equipment and infrastructure, significant net cost savings are projected as the result of the impeding increased efficiency and productivity improvements.

L&SC Strategies also organised and lead the G&S Project Team on a 1 day tour of Brisbane companies to observe logistics equipment and systems in operation, to aid G&S in their capital equipment decision making.

G&S Engineering Services is located at 27 Len Shield Street, Mackay, Queensland. Phone number: 07 4963 7777. Website: http://www.g-s.com.au