Our Approach

Brilliant Basics provides plant optimisation to our customers
Productive Industries provide the Brilliant Basics programme for plant optimisation to our customers. Brilliant Basics is made up of three core elements:
  • Process Improvements.
  • Management Systems.
  • People Solution.
The core principle sitting behind Brilliant Basics is that operational excellence is achieved through defining the ‘good habits’ of running a business and getting them right day after day – building high performing teams that are the culmination of all the things they do well.
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Brilliant Basics

Brilliant Basics delivers value through easy to understand, easy to implement, low cost, high benefit ‘people powered’ methodologies. Those methodologies become ‘habits’ over time resulting in a team culture that accepts ownership for its performance through a consistent, dependable and efficient outlook towards operational improvement.
Brilliant Basics infographic
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Process Improvement

Material waste and giveaway is a cost to the business that can very quickly escalate to eye watering levels of loss creating a domino effect of strangling budgets and limiting the levels of agility required to provide great customer service. By doing the ‘Brilliant Basics’ we employ a whole new approach to identifying and eliminating the combinations of sources that lead to excessive material waste or giveaway.

Maintaining downward pressure on Customer Complaints & Material Failure can become increasingly difficult to achieve as occurrence rates increase. The ‘Brilliant Basics’ works on the principle that the best way to deal with a complaint or failure is to ensure it doesn’t happen in the first place. Reviewing, analysing and correcting after the event is too reactive to drive a step change in performance that customers will notice. The ‘Brilliant Basics’ use techniques that are pro-active by design, identifying and containing the conditions and triggers that could lead to a material failure and subsequent complaint.

Asset reliability and performance is key. If the plant is not reliable then reputation will suffer. Doing the ‘Brilliant Basics’ means we have developed and embedded techniques beyond the usual PM and defect recording systems. We use enhanced methodologies that put us on the ‘front foot’ in understanding and reducing plant vulnerabilities. We engage in cross functional planning, co-ordination and review practices that ensure best in class levels of reliability.

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Management Systems

Engaging teams in the performance of their plant is a vital ingredient of the ‘Brilliant Basics’. Sustaining high performing teams can only be achieved when performance is owned, reviewed, and improved by everyone who is involved in the production process. Doing the ‘Brilliant Basics’ means we have effective Performance Review Infrastructures in place that encourage engagement and drive meaningful activity.

Whether it be near miss recording, temp labour costs, staff overtime, energy, plant hire or R&M spend, the ability to effectively prioritise Safety, Quality, Delivery, Cost and People improvements across short to medium timeframes is vital, especially when operating in demanding market conditions. By doing the ‘Brilliant Basics’ we avoid the ‘No Problem’ problem. We develop a deep understanding of how our processes are performing and we introduce the necessary counter-measures early enough to recover and reverse poor performance before it happens.

Every plant should be working towards the incremental improvement of it’s practices and performance to ensure sustained growth in profit and local reputation. However, the ‘Brilliant Basics’ recognises that this only works when requirements, resources and risks are reviewed regularly and owned by the relevant members of the leadership team. The Optimise Governance & Reporting process ensures plant managers can articulate how well embedded their employee practices are, how their performance measures are behaving on a week-by-week basis, where gaps in performance exist and which Productivity Levers are being pulled to close those gaps.

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People Solutions

‘Brilliant Basics’ means that we employ exceptional standards when it comes to Safe Working Practices. From induction processes, housekeeping, PPE to guarding, the ‘Brilliant Basics’ maintain safety standards that are always on the mark of excellence.

There can be many complications created within teams when it comes to roles. Team members join, team members leave, roles can be done by several people all with differing skills and experience levels. Some roles ‘float’ between colleagues whilst some seem to fall entirely between the day-to-day operational cracks. ‘Brilliant Basics’ Role Optimisation ensures all ‘live’ roles are allocated to the most appropriate team members, that skill levels are defined and that team members have an opportunity to build the skills necessary to correctly carry out the task. In addition, we ensure that task completion or ‘confirmation’ is made visible so teams can tell quickly if a performance related problem is attributable to a task not being done.

The key to collaboration between team members and leaders depends on there being high levels of ‘Participative Leadership’ and ‘Employee Involvement’ in the optimisation of core processes. The ‘Brilliant Basics’ ensures leaders understand the principles, theories and practices that Build High Performing Teams.

Brilliant Basics has been developed after many years of experience delivering improvement initiatives into the mineral and materials industry. We have taken the best formula for success we know and turned it into a programme that engages teams, delivers value and develops sustainable practices.
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Issues Addressed By Brilliant Basics

  • Poor daily leadership that doesn’t engage well with its team.
  • Unsafe acts or practices that go unrecorded leading to more serious incidents.
  • Actions to improve safety that are left overdue or uncompleted.

Ineffective preventative maintenance that leads to poor ownership, lack of problem detection, lack of refurbishment planning ultimately resulting in interrupted supply or catastrophic unplanned breakdown.

  • Uncontrolled material waste that can accumulate over time if the countermeasures to waste creation aren’t checked for effectiveness.
  • Uncontrolled temp labour costs.
  • Uncontrolled staff overtime costs.
  • Uncontrolled reliability and maintenance spend.
  • Uncontrolled plant equipment hire costs.
  • Poor material control leading to excessive ‘giveaway’ costs.
  • Poor or limited use of recycled materials.
  • Excessive customer complaints that go unresolved or countermeasures to combat reoccurance ignored.
  • Excessive head count vacancies leaving key safety, customer facing and security responsibilities vulnerable.
  • Excessive energy costs driven by poor equipment maintenance and operational practices.

Team Outcomes From Brilliant Basics

  • Team engagement in operational ‘good habits’ that ensure daily incremental improvements that positively impact customer service and cost.
  • Teams engaged earlier, improvement delivered quicker, fewer mistakes experienced resulting in greater overall return on investment.
  • A reduction in customer complaints and product failures.
  • High levels of asset reliability and performance.
  • Material waste and giveaway kept to the minimum level of process acceptability.
  • Robust performance review processes and infrastructure are in place.
  • Cost opportunities are reviewed, prioritised and actioned.
  • Senior steering & governance takes place at appropriate milestones.
  • Team leaders and supervisors are coached in the skills required to build high performing teams.
  • Team roles are clarified, allocated and confirmed when completed daily, weekly and monthly.
  • Site safety standards are maintained at the mark of excellence.

What Matters to Our Clients

  • To operate safely and to operate a sustainable ‘zero harm’ environment.
  • To be profitable by ensuring margin exceeds budget forecast.

They can only achieve this if:

  • Nobody get hurts doing their job.
  • They have plant availability that is consistently above 95%.
  • They can control their fixed and variable costs against budget.
  • They can effectively drive down customer complaint generation.
  • They can eliminate the occurrence of Product Quality Failure.
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We provide the Brilliant Basics programme for enterprise-wide implementation encompassing operations, commercial and distribution functions.

Three Problems Addressed

Analysis by Productive Industries has found issues can be split into three categories.
External problem

External Problem

Our clients need to operate plants that make good margin, can demonstrate good cost control and can achieve customer expectation whilst operating in a zero harm environment.

Internal problem

Internal Problem

Poor performance can be a slippery slope that subsequently becomes very difficult to recover leading to a perception of failure, bad customer service and in the worst cases, ineffective leadership.

Philosophical problem

Philosophical Problem

Our clients don’t always have the ‘bandwidth’ to optimise their operation in the timeframe required and to the degree of expertise necessitated by the situation.