As part our drive towards Continuous Improvement, we are excited to announce that a global 5S contest has kicked off on October 10^th  and will close on November 4^th.  This contest serves as a kick off to a new approach to 5S and Lean within Ivy.  This will consist of more contests, recognition and improved education tools!  Lean and 5S play a crucial role in our success as a company and should be engrained into our daily activities.  Every day we should focus on how we can improve ourselves, our work environment and our processes.

If you would like to learn more about 5S, the contests, Lean strategy or our education process and to keep up to date on changes, visit the Continuous Improvement portal as many exciting things are coming in the next few months!

Ivy’s New Program Introduction process or ‘NPI’ is critical to our ability to manage the time it takes from a new program being launched to fulfilling both our internal and customer facing KPIs.  To equip us for success we are delighted to introduce a new NPI Strategy, that combines a NPI checklist procedure, phased gate management and also the use of a new software for Project Management, called Smartsheet.

We are bringing more visibility and accountability to KPIs, Project status, Change Management and Risk Mitigation.  Introducing a risk based approval process in order to progress to the next phase of the project launch.  Templates for Project Gantt charts, Action trackers, Project Failure Modes and Effects Analysis, Change Logs and Project Dashboards have been implemented in Smartsheet and are being used on all new NPIs.  Full training for all Site Management teams will be coming in Q4!