Case Study: Railway Network Operator

Railway Network – Introducing visual management for $170m business.

This project was taken up by this NSW based network, after the inspiring success of visual management at other rail networks in the country. For example, Melbourne Metro moved from being worst financial performer to the best in the country. A team of lean practitioners, ex-Toyota employees, were involved from UK, and Lean Pursuit was engaged to bring expertise and local experience to the transformation.

Visual management was introduced in four phases, starting from the top and then going down the layers of management. This created firstly ability for the CEO to do standing weekly review with his leadership team in less than half hour. He could quickly make decisions, pick up the weak links and successes to celebrate.

Ultimately, the senior manager was able to choose where to focus his energy rest of the week, based on this review. It created the desired positive tension, which helped to break through bureaucratic public sector legacy issues. Once visual management was introduced through the levels, inefficient staff found it very hard to hide their poor performance, things started to move, senior managers were also exposed, in case they dragging the chain.

Results:

• Team starting to work together. – 80% plus achievement on KPIs.
• Underperforming staff identified for follow-up actions.