1. The document discusses how to effectively implement changes and improvements to a business without negatively impacting operations. It provides 10 key points to consider when beginning the change process. 2. The points include having a clear long-term vision, developing a detailed strategic plan that identifies risks and contingencies, making incremental changes one piece at a time, and using current resources where possible without relying on expensive new capital. 3. The overall message is that successful change requires planning, identifying risks, contingency planning, incremental improvements, and understanding how changes will impact costs, employees, and operations.

1. Where Do You
Begin?
Frank Rzeznikiewicz

2. Where Do You Begin?
• You have taken on a new position or decided that a step change
needs to be made to improve your business’s efficiency. Where do
you begin and how do you make the transfer effective without
slowing down the business to an unprofitable margin, alarming
customers with late deliveries, or creating a total disarray of the
business? We have witnessed many businesses over the years go
through a restructuring plan that has severely effected the business
in a negative financials and has forced the owners to recoil
initiatives. These businesses then pull back to a ’year over year’
small percentage change and never make the step changes
necessary to evolve the business thereby capturing new markets.
There are steps that can be taken and a strategic plan that can be
developed whereby all owners know what is expected and the pace
of which improvements will occur. The following points must be
considered to be successful on your journey.

3. Where Do You Begin?
• 1. You need a Vision that states where you want the company
to evolve to in one, three, five and ten years. That vision must
be accepted by the CEO, COO and the Board of Directors.
• 2. There must be a yearly strategic plan. This plan must be
clear and must state details, expectations and risks.

4. Where Do You Begin?
• 3. Know your risks and the impacts of them. Divulge them at
your strategic plan discussions. Too many plans are overly
optimistic and do not inform the owners of the inherent
failures that can happen to even the best strategy.
• 4. Contingency plan every avenue of defined risk. It is
acceptable to have different levels of risk in your plan.
Categorize them and all high and medium risks must have
contingencies constructed ahead of time to ensure that the
effects are minimized.

5. Where Do You Begin?
• 5. Do not change the plan to hit financials quarter points. You
can adjust your strategy to accomplish the tasks necessary but
you must not chase a metric for a quarter point and change
your strategy in a haphazard manner.
• 6. Assure you understand how changes affect costs, workers
and managers. Minimize wastes of people waiting,
overproduction, procurement or idle equipment, and
excessive stagnation and transportation of product.

6. Where Do You Begin?
• 7. Process change one piece at time. When you process
change in too many areas, you cannot understand the data
and the attributes. Therefore, you cannot construe a cause
and effect relationship as the changes and their effects are
muddled together.
• 8. Use Kaizen bursts to implement small changes to a larger
value stream improvement.

7. Where Do You Begin?
• 9. Realize that new capital is a financial drag. The more the
expense that capital incurs, the more cost structure you must
absorb immediately. Think small and less expensive. Anyone
can engineer a process with the most elaborate equipment. A
good plan is one that uses current resources and equipment
with some intermediate investments.
• 10. Realize that this is not easy. Never become discouraged.
A failure or setback is merely an opportunity for improvement.
You can accomplish the tasks if you plan out your process
improvements. We tend to apply these improvements to the
manufacturing world. In reality, the service industry needs the
same overhaul and drive for efficiency.