Any operational intervention and/or initiative will be accepted. Clearly indicated how you would suggest such change to be managed. Also explain If the change was not managed well, what the possible implications could be for the organisational processes and KPIs as well as for the personnel (i.e. social effect).

4. Red flags in production Dennehy's entrance into Shonaquip was a baptism by fire. She arrived just as the factory was retuming from their summer break after an extremely busy 2017 year-end. Both the factory and their suppliers had struggled to keep up with the year-end demand, which was not unusual among manufacturers. However, Dennehy soon understood the particular challenges facing Shonaquip's factory. At a high level, Shonaquip's processes were fairly standard. They functioned mostly as a job shop with customisation available at different penetration points in the production process, depending on the needs of the end-user. Where it was needed, customisation could start at design, procurement or assembly stages of production. In this way they VOL 10 MO. 1 200 MEALD EMERGING MAKETS CASES TUDES PAGES provided for nearly every possible scenario of customer equipment needs: designing unique devices, procuring specialised non-inventory parts, tailoring standard devices to customer specifications and combining multiple devices to form a complete solution. Members from the design, clinical and financial teams often worked with the customer to identify the right equipment solution (including the complementary services), generate the unique quotation and place the order with the factory. The clinical administrators were largely responsible for managing the customer's order, including the provision of a delivery date estimate. They worked on standard lead times of 6-8 weeks for private orders, and a maximum of four weeks for tender orders. This was done irrespective of the order penetration point, solution complexity, size of the order or current stock levels, which they could not view via the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system they used to manage orders. The order placement was not the only production trigger. The stores' team regularly triggered made b-stock (MTS) batches of subassemblies such as footboxes, brake sets, castor wheel sets, back support systems and headrests that were common to multiple items or sold as spares. Production, therefore, included both job shop (high mix, low volume manufacture) and batch-like elements. Replenishment of MTS inventory (subassemblies or standard finished devices) was neither well defined or monitored nor differentiated into high and low seasons. As head of the stores' team, Chiriwo re-ordered stock from suppliers based on his experience and his view of anticipated and incoming orders relative to inventory on hand. The actual delivery time depended on several factors. If all completed items were in inventory, the stores' team could issue stock directly to the dispatch team. If components or subassemblies were in inventory, stores would issue manufacturing instructions and stock items to the assembly team. The assembly team would then co-ordinate manufacturing with the upholstery team where applicable. Once completed, upholstery items and assembled frames converged for dressing and packaging. Completed orders were dispatched daily. However, this was not always the end of the customer's joumey with Shonaquip. Therapists sometimes retumed from fitting trips with fault reports. Some devices delivered either did not match their specifications or were damaged in transit and had to be repaired on-the-fly, sometimes in challenging settings. When Dennehy and the factory team prepared to kick off the New Year in January 2018, the different weaknesses in the system operating under year-end pressure were visible. The factory and two temporary off-site stores were full of devices ready for checking and dispatch. The therapists who were scheduled for on-site fittings were checking their orders and finding errors. Clinical administrators were emailing to request delivery dates on behalf of their clients, whose orders were still in a long production queue. There was no time for strategy. These issues required immediate action - Dennehy would have to move. 5. Quick fixes To quell the sense of chaos, Dennehy set about deploying some tried and tested operations management methods. Her first priority was to clear the floor. She immediately put new production on hold to check and correct packed orders to get them dispatched. Next, she set out to understand what work was in the production queue and how long it had been there. However, the work-in-progress (WIP) reports from the ERP were fragmented and difficult to read. Dennehy worked with the administrators to set up temporary order summary spreadsheets to track order placement details, manufacturing status and delivery times. Although the information initially captured in this rudimentary spreadsheet (which yielded Exhibit 6) was far from perfect, sharing it across the enterprise diluted some frustration, reduced the flow of queries and provided breathing space. PAGE | EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASESTUDIES | VOL 10 NO. 1 200 The introduction of the order summary sheet brought to the fore another issue that required immediate action. It was not possible for Dennehy or anyone, to reliably populate the field for order manufacture status because no one could identify the orders on the floor. Once production was triggered, the factory operators did not always know which order they were working on. To correct this, Chiriwo started tagging every base frame with the sales order or intemal tracking number before issuing to assembly, and Abrahams from the upholstery team sealed her team's completed work in clear bags labelled with the tracking number. Dennehy continued the concerted effort to organise the space and reduce clutter in the factory by introducing 5S (Ehrenfeld, 2017). De Villiers in assembly and Stemmet in dispatch supported this by designating the areas for the different stages of production using yellow floor tape and wall labels and removed unnecessary shelving where items tended to stall or get lost. To address the product error reports from therapists in the field, Stemmet worked with the clinical team to implement finished product quality control checks immediately. They also added a non-conformance report system for tracking device issues (Exhibit 7), which showed that the biggest source of error was in product-specification mismatch originating in the factory - food for future thought. However, for the moment, there were still kinks in the new QC system. It required several rounds of practical training of the assembly, dispatch and clinical teams together on the factory floor. Once they began, the checks added to processing time and created significant temporary stress. Operators were afraid of getting others in trouble for mistakes, so there was an initial reluctance to document errors. However, within weeks, a massive reduction in errors was plainly evident. By some measures, the objective factory improvements could not be considered an unqualified victory. In the longer term, the upstream quality needed to be built into processes to replace the late-stage quality checking. The interim finished product QC checks had added processing time, while Shonaquip was aiming to reduce delivery times significantly. For those keenly attuned to the core mission, this was clearly incompatible with the customer's needs and the Shonaquip vision: It sends the wrong message," said McDonald. "It's all about getting the kids off the floor as fast as possible." This would have to improve. Now, that Dennehy had put out the fires on current production orders, she could give greater attention to the deeper-rooted issues in the factory. 6. Digging deeper Once ongoing operations stabilised, Dennehy began spending more time with both the factory team and the administrative team to pinpoint the main sources of stress for factory operations. From these conversations, two core issues emerged, namely, cash flow and troubled team dynamics. Cash flow was a dominant operational stressor. Budgeting was centralised with Jones in finance, but budget allocations had remained static under cash- flow pressures. Jones was spending much of his time vetting the day-to-day spending requests relative to cash availability and negotiating payment solutions with suppliers and banks. Non-essentials and unanticipated expenditure were simply not possible. For the factory, this meant there was limited funding for contract assistance, extemal training courses or new programmes, such as the calibration and planned preventative maintenance programmes required for ISO 9001 compliance. Naturally, Dennehy wanted to understand the root cause of cash constraints. Clearly, the South African economic climate was extremely challenging. The economy had contracted in the first two quarters of 2018, slipping South Africa into recession once again. Small businesses, generally, were struggling to survive after years of stubbomly low economic growth. This limited capital investment options, and forced agility and creativity in VOL 10 NO. 1 212 EMERALD EMERGING MAKETS CASES TUDES s PAGES solution-finding at the factory. Operating a factory within a troubled emerging economy was never going to be comfortable or easy. Furthermore, reconciling financial management with the for-purpose mission and social impact goals made their challenge far greater. For example, external consultants had suggested reducing the variety of products and customisations to alleviate cash constraints. However, this approach was fundamentally opposed to the social mission: "That does not make any sense", said McDonald. You cannot be too disabled to be helped". There were others who thought the main issue was inefficiency in the factory. Dennehy received regular queries about the energy and pace of the factory team. There was concem that the team was reactive, responding only to last-minute crises, and perhaps, even angling for overtime. This made it extremely difficult to justify overtime or peak-time Outsourcing, which are often necessary measures in variable manufacturing environments. Of course, Dennehy had also thought part of the solution to the cash-flow problem could be simply working smarter in the factory, but she was hesitant to point a finger solely at operator efficiency. Based on her first round of quick fixes, it was clear that inventories and WIP were locking up too much cash. Then, perhaps, their product margins were unreasonably low to support the costs of both manufacture and added-value clinical services. Either way, she was sure the organisation's migration toward ISO processes would help address some of these issues and free up at least some cash. However, there was a second, more fundamental, issue at play, which would affect her planning. In her regular walkabouts on the factory floor, Dennehy took time to converse with team members to get to know them better and build her understanding of the product, processes and the environment She soon found that what others in the organisation had criticised as underperformance and poor motivation was at least in part, a symptom of internal conflict stemming from organisational dynamics. Her last three predecessors had each left within one year, so continuity had been broken and there was an undercurrent of cynicism about new initiatives from another new "manager". For some, there were doubts about whether such a person was needed at all. There were also issues of accountability and trust between the team members. Problems with late deliveries and product quality had led to frustration and culture of complaining or blaming when things went wrong. A few relationships had even deteriorated as a result. The most experienced team members often exerted the most power on the floor, and they were 4. Red flags in production Dennehy's entrance into Shonaquip was a baptism by fire. She arrived just as the factory was retuming from their summer break after an extremely busy 2017 year-end. Both the factory and their suppliers had struggled to keep up with the year-end demand, which was not unusual among manufacturers. However, Dennehy soon understood the particular challenges facing Shonaquip's factory. At a high level, Shonaquip's processes were fairly standard. They functioned mostly as a job shop with customisation available at different penetration points in the production process, depending on the needs of the end-user. Where it was needed, customisation could start at design, procurement or assembly stages of production. In this way they VOL 10 MO. 1 200 MEALD EMERGING MAKETS CASES TUDES PAGES provided for nearly every possible scenario of customer equipment needs: designing unique devices, procuring specialised non-inventory parts, tailoring standard devices to customer specifications and combining multiple devices to form a complete solution. Members from the design, clinical and financial teams often worked with the customer to identify the right equipment solution (including the complementary services), generate the unique quotation and place the order with the factory. The clinical administrators were largely responsible for managing the customer's order, including the provision of a delivery date estimate. They worked on standard lead times of 6-8 weeks for private orders, and a maximum of four weeks for tender orders. This was done irrespective of the order penetration point, solution complexity, size of the order or current stock levels, which they could not view via the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system they used to manage orders. The order placement was not the only production trigger. The stores' team regularly triggered made b-stock (MTS) batches of subassemblies such as footboxes, brake sets, castor wheel sets, back support systems and headrests that were common to multiple items or sold as spares. Production, therefore, included both job shop (high mix, low volume manufacture) and batch-like elements. Replenishment of MTS inventory (subassemblies or standard finished devices) was neither well defined or monitored nor differentiated into high and low seasons. As head of the stores' team, Chiriwo re-ordered stock from suppliers based on his experience and his view of anticipated and incoming orders relative to inventory on hand. The actual delivery time depended on several factors. If all completed items were in inventory, the stores' team could issue stock directly to the dispatch team. If components or subassemblies were in inventory, stores would issue manufacturing instructions and stock items to the assembly team. The assembly team would then co-ordinate manufacturing with the upholstery team where applicable. Once completed, upholstery items and assembled frames converged for dressing and packaging. Completed orders were dispatched daily. However, this was not always the end of the customer's joumey with Shonaquip. Therapists sometimes retumed from fitting trips with fault reports. Some devices delivered either did not match their specifications or were damaged in transit and had to be repaired on-the-fly, sometimes in challenging settings. When Dennehy and the factory team prepared to kick off the New Year in January 2018, the different weaknesses in the system operating under year-end pressure were visible. The factory and two temporary off-site stores were full of devices ready for checking and dispatch. The therapists who were scheduled for on-site fittings were checking their orders and finding errors. Clinical administrators were emailing to request delivery dates on behalf of their clients, whose orders were still in a long production queue. There was no time for strategy. These issues required immediate action - Dennehy would have to move. 5. Quick fixes To quell the sense of chaos, Dennehy set about deploying some tried and tested operations management methods. Her first priority was to clear the floor. She immediately put new production on hold to check and correct packed orders to get them dispatched. Next, she set out to understand what work was in the production queue and how long it had been there. However, the work-in-progress (WIP) reports from the ERP were fragmented and difficult to read. Dennehy worked with the administrators to set up temporary order summary spreadsheets to track order placement details, manufacturing status and delivery times. Although the information initially captured in this rudimentary spreadsheet (which yielded Exhibit 6) was far from perfect, sharing it across the enterprise diluted some frustration, reduced the flow of queries and provided breathing space. PAGE | EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASESTUDIES | VOL 10 NO. 1 200 The introduction of the order summary sheet brought to the fore another issue that required immediate action. It was not possible for Dennehy or anyone, to reliably populate the field for order manufacture status because no one could identify the orders on the floor. Once production was triggered, the factory operators did not always know which order they were working on. To correct this, Chiriwo started tagging every base frame with the sales order or intemal tracking number before issuing to assembly, and Abrahams from the upholstery team sealed her team's completed work in clear bags labelled with the tracking number. Dennehy continued the concerted effort to organise the space and reduce clutter in the factory by introducing 5S (Ehrenfeld, 2017). De Villiers in assembly and Stemmet in dispatch supported this by designating the areas for the different stages of production using yellow floor tape and wall labels and removed unnecessary shelving where items tended to stall or get lost. To address the product error reports from therapists in the field, Stemmet worked with the clinical team to implement finished product quality control checks immediately. They also added a non-conformance report system for tracking device issues (Exhibit 7), which showed that the biggest source of error was in product-specification mismatch originating in the factory - food for future thought. However, for the moment, there were still kinks in the new QC system. It required several rounds of practical training of the assembly, dispatch and clinical teams together on the factory floor. Once they began, the checks added to processing time and created significant temporary stress. Operators were afraid of getting others in trouble for mistakes, so there was an initial reluctance to document errors. However, within weeks, a massive reduction in errors was plainly evident. By some measures, the objective factory improvements could not be considered an unqualified victory. In the longer term, the upstream quality needed to be built into processes to replace the late-stage quality checking. The interim finished product QC checks had added processing time, while Shonaquip was aiming to reduce delivery times significantly. For those keenly attuned to the core mission, this was clearly incompatible with the customer's needs and the Shonaquip vision: It sends the wrong message," said McDonald. "It's all about getting the kids off the floor as fast as possible." This would have to improve. Now, that Dennehy had put out the fires on current production orders, she could give greater attention to the deeper-rooted issues in the factory. 6. Digging deeper Once ongoing operations stabilised, Dennehy began spending more time with both the factory team and the administrative team to pinpoint the main sources of stress for factory operations. From these conversations, two core issues emerged, namely, cash flow and troubled team dynamics. Cash flow was a dominant operational stressor. Budgeting was centralised with Jones in finance, but budget allocations had remained static under cash- flow pressures. Jones was spending much of his time vetting the day-to-day spending requests relative to cash availability and negotiating payment solutions with suppliers and banks. Non-essentials and unanticipated expenditure were simply not possible. For the factory, this meant there was limited funding for contract assistance, extemal training courses or new programmes, such as the calibration and planned preventative maintenance programmes required for ISO 9001 compliance. Naturally, Dennehy wanted to understand the root cause of cash constraints. Clearly, the South African economic climate was extremely challenging. The economy had contracted in the first two quarters of 2018, slipping South Africa into recession once again. Small businesses, generally, were struggling to survive after years of stubbomly low economic growth. This limited capital investment options, and forced agility and creativity in VOL 10 NO. 1 212 EMERALD EMERGING MAKETS CASES TUDES s PAGES solution-finding at the factory. Operating a factory within a troubled emerging economy was never going to be comfortable or easy. Furthermore, reconciling financial management with the for-purpose mission and social impact goals made their challenge far greater. For example, external consultants had suggested reducing the variety of products and customisations to alleviate cash constraints. However, this approach was fundamentally opposed to the social mission: "That does not make any sense", said McDonald. You cannot be too disabled to be helped". There were others who thought the main issue was inefficiency in the factory. Dennehy received regular queries about the energy and pace of the factory team. There was concem that the team was reactive, responding only to last-minute crises, and perhaps, even angling for overtime. This made it extremely difficult to justify overtime or peak-time Outsourcing, which are often necessary measures in variable manufacturing environments. Of course, Dennehy had also thought part of the solution to the cash-flow problem could be simply working smarter in the factory, but she was hesitant to point a finger solely at operator efficiency. Based on her first round of quick fixes, it was clear that inventories and WIP were locking up too much cash. Then, perhaps, their product margins were unreasonably low to support the costs of both manufacture and added-value clinical services. Either way, she was sure the organisation's migration toward ISO processes would help address some of these issues and free up at least some cash. However, there was a second, more fundamental, issue at play, which would affect her planning. In her regular walkabouts on the factory floor, Dennehy took time to converse with team members to get to know them better and build her understanding of the product, processes and the environment She soon found that what others in the organisation had criticised as underperformance and poor motivation was at least in part, a symptom of internal conflict stemming from organisational dynamics. Her last three predecessors had each left within one year, so continuity had been broken and there was an undercurrent of cynicism about new initiatives from another new "manager". For some, there were doubts about whether such a person was needed at all. There were also issues of accountability and trust between the team members. Problems with late deliveries and product quality had led to frustration and culture of complaining or blaming when things went wrong. A few relationships had even deteriorated as a result. The most experienced team members often exerted the most power on the floor, and they were