MBtech News.

Simulated office daily routine in a lecture hall

“They have just told me that I can only have one pen, and, just when I needed one, there was none available”, stated Joachim Metzger, a student in the 5th semester, regarding the improvement measures of his colleagues. “If individual steps prove to be negative or ineffective, it is essential to thoroughly investigate the reasons and quickly change the actions involved. Otherwise, the team, which must actually push ahead its own improvements, loses motivation.  And it is absolutely natural that some measures do not prove to be useful in practice. Nevertheless, it is important for the team to remain active and be continuously ready to shape its processes. It is easier said than done, but one can be trained for it”, the experienced management consultant Oliver Sperling said to calm the group down. Students nod and experience the difference between theory and practice in real time: The 17 young consultants simulate a complete assignment flow process and optimise it in two improvement sessions on their own, in a simulation moderated by the MBtech Consulting advisors.

The whole range of waste in the office environment is integrated in an unpleasant but realistic simulation process: non-transparent event sequences, unclear work instructions, missing interface definitions, unnecessary touching-up for release, varying workloads, “fire-fighting”, etc. It’s a miracle that, at the end of the session, some of the orders actually arrived at the customer! The students see how frustrating the work in such an environment can be. But as soon as the figures started to rise after the first series of improvements, the mood lifted since this effect was the result of their own work.

“This is a key experience for most of the employees: To know that they can constantly improve the processes they have practised for years just by using the right methods. We think that this is the best way for our clients to proceed, since no one knows the prevailing conditions and processes better than the people involved themselves. That is why workers in production have been accomplishing improvements by themselves for years; we only provide them with the right methods. This enables them to achieve the highest improvement rates and to take responsibility for the process. We have also been implementing this concept in the office environment for many years because there is still great potential for improvement here” explained Oliver Sperling.

For students that are frequently visited by different consulting companies, this workshop is comparatively demanding: “It is exciting to experience such a comprehensive process proceeding to its conclusion. Especially in lean projects, the intended change of roles among employees is noticeable”, said Joachim Metzger, manager of the Trustee and Partner department.

“To MBtech Consulting, students from the excellent student management consulting company delta e.V. are particularly interesting; we notice how well they get on when working together in the simulation. Of course, we hope that the students also have pleasant memories of our daily working routine and our company the next time they apply for on-the-job training etc.”, said Florian Mirow, Junior Associate of MBtech Consulting, and (as well as most of the delta e.V. students) an Industrial Engineer.

By the way, Mr Metzger’s pen was not replaced in the subsequent session since the order form was rearranged so that a pen was no longer needed in his workplace.

The cooperation between delta e.V. and MBtech Consulting is on the right road, so that further joint events and projects are being planned for the upcoming semesters.

Contact: Oliver Sperling