About Us
We are Systems Consultants and Trainers
Tsana Associates is a consortium of management professionals with combined experience totalling in excess of 100 years in:
Tsana Associates specialise in helping organisations in diverse fields understand and apply the theory and methods needed for a successful improvement transformation and we have supported and facilitated literally hundreds of successful projects across a wide range of business sectors since our consultancy was founded more than 20 years ago.
Friday, September 28, 2007|
Stanmore Estate tennant wins Queens Award Stanmore Industrial Estate, Bridgnorth was founded 43 years ago when local builder Jeffrey Hickman purchased the site from the Ministry of Defence. These days it is managed by his sons Stewart and Mitchel Hickman and has been transformed into a modern industrial and commercial park which is home to a large number of thriving businesses. Grainger and Worrall, one such business, was visited by Prince Edward in September to present The Queens Award for Enterprise 2007: International Trade. G&W manufactures and supplies high integrity complex castings, for Automotive, Aerospace and Defence Industries. They are global leaders in 'casting solutions' and their customers, including Formula1, Nascar, Aston Martin, Bentley, Bugatti, and Rolls Royce Aerospace are spread throughout the UK and the world. At first sight their location in a leafy country park on the outskirts of Bridgnorth might seem strange, would a location in a more industrialised area be more appropriate for their business? "Not at all" says James Grainger "We are ideally placed for access to our customers, being just 15 minutes from the motorway, 15 minutes from Telford and Wolverhampton and 1 hour from Birmingham airport. In fact our customers like to visit us here and being located in Bridgnorth with its shops, pubs and restaurants also helps when we're recruiting." Grainger and Worrall's premises have grown with them since they moved to Stanmore in 1995. Having the estate owners on site does no harm at all when it comes to getting things done quickly to meet tenant requirements as Mitch Hickman is quick to point out. "Grainger and Worrall are a good example of how the design of the individual buildings can be shaped to match client growth. We have starter units here and we also have some very big employers and consider our job for all our tenants is to contribute to their growth and success by making life as easy for them as we can". "We enjoy coming to work at Stanmore and we hope our tenants do too. With this location it's not too difficult."
For more information ring or visit www.StanmoreEstate.com |
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Crane Services win biggest orderWest Midlands lifting equipment manufacturer hoists biggest ever order as 50th Anniversary looms, thanks to the Internet. Crane Services Ltd of Amblecote, Stourbridge, (UK) due to celebrate their 50th anniversary next year have won their biggest ever order thanks to an internet marketing campaign. Just weeks after beginning the campaign, Crane Services received an enquiry via their web site to design and build a large scale specialist computer controlled handling system for one of the UK's leading manufacturers of decorative concrete slabs. MD Rob Lewis says "We were extending our range of products and services with the introduction of a competitive new range of Flex radio controls for overhead lifting equipment and machinery, and we needed a method of marketing the new product. In addition to the more traditional methods we decided to experiment with web advertising". Crane Services decided to run a series of paid for advertisements on one of the internet's search sites (Google). "Because we were just testing the water we chose a very small budget, but right from day 1 the level of enquiries surprised us". Sales of their Flex radio controls were impressive, but the advertising campaign also had the effect of generating leads for the existing crane servicing and manufacturing business. Within weeks a web enquiry for a one-off handling system, designed and built specially to move moulds of concrete slabs in and out of a drying shed at a large slab manufacturing facility in the UK had been converted into the biggest single commission Crane Services has ever received. The machine which is computer controlled will lift and stack moulds of wet concrete in a drying facility and then remove them when dry on a first in first out rotation ready for packing and delivery. The handling system picks up rows of 14 moulds each containing 9 slabs which are then stacked 60 high in up to 16 stacks. The system will work 24 hours a day, 6 days a week, fully automatically. The complex electrical control system required 2 months to install and test utilizing advanced proximity detection equipment with fibre optics, encoder feedback and load sensing equipment, all controlling Demag drive units for lifting, travelling and grab operation. "The control system was a real challenge" said Rob Lewis, "not least because the reliability required in the hot, damp atmosphere of the drying shed required a high level of electrical protection and wiring integrity". Due to the atmosphere the use of electronic/inverter drives was minimized and the proven Demag motor technology was used to cope with high speeds and ardous cycle requirements. The hoisting mechanism utilized a novel chain system designed for long term reliability and low maintenance. It is planned that the computer system will monitor the conditions and operation of the crane and will generate emails logging faults whenever they occur. "The equipment is so large that we had to take extra factory space in order to assemble the equipment prior to delivery" says Rob Lewis. "The truck and trailer required for the 24 metre long load required rear steering to negotiate the narrow roads leading to the customer's factory. A few road signs required temporary removal, but on the whole the exercise went smoothly, thanks to the professionalism of the transport company". "The enquiries and orders are still flowing in from the web advertising campaign and we haven't found any need to revise the small budget we started with". Contact for further information
Rob Lewis
+44 (0)1384 370318
sales@craneservices.co.uk
www.craneservices.co.uk |
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Six Sigma and MarketingMany corporate firms are questioning the effectiveness of their marketing efforts but few companies employ appropriate methodologies for measuring their marketing activities. A further complication is that being transaction based, marketing processes and systems are not always subjected to improvement initiatives as would be operations or manufacturing.Keith Pincher, founder of Tsana Associates - a consulting firm specialising in continuous improvement and innovation methodologies - says "Marketers may consider themselves to be the creative artists in the company, but in the boardroom they must begin speaking the language of statistics and data that is widely understood and accepted." Pincher explains that it is not that marketers ignore data, it is that it often that they collect too many of the wrong kind and interpret them without wisdom. Marketing must focus on its processes, its decision making, particularly in relation to marketing campaigns, price realisation, channel selection and management, product and customer portfolios and new offerings. These areas require analysis and decisive decision making based on good data well used. All strategies and company processes - marketing, supply chain, operations etc. - are aligned to the Voice of the Customer (VoC) and are improved and designed backwards starting with what the end user requires. Marketers don't need Six Sigma practitioners to tell them that, after all, they invented the concept. But somewhere along the way the initiative has been taken away. Marketing must now apply the statistical techniques being used so successfully elsewhere in their organisations and get their own house in order The good news is that it appears that this new breed of marketer is emerging. A marketer that wants to restore the balance within marketing and gain credibility amongst its peer disciplines. Generally inadequate marketing metrics such as volume changes, sales trends or even net revenue are used to indicate marketing performance; often metrics contrived by frustrated financial managers finding it difficult to measure this thing called marketing. Marketing must show unequivocally its value to the bottom line, none of the aforementioned measures do that. The best criterion for measurement is to maximise net profit, after deducting the cost of marketing, and balancing it with non-financial market based metrics. Pincher explains that Six Sigma, popularised by Jack Welsh and successfully used by countless international firms, offers both process improvement and continuous innovation methodologies that have successfully been applied to sales and marketing. Six Sigma, originally a quality improvement methodology developed by Motorola, is one of the global best practices used by Tsana Associates to produce sustained marketing performance improvement. By better understanding the VoC and the Voice of the Process (VoP), Six Sigma sets out to align processes to a company's strategic objectives while prioritising focus areas within and outside of the business. Looking inward is about correcting and designing processes to deliver value. Looking outward is about prioritising markets and opportunities to gain value. 6:02:24 PM Comment on this Item |
Monday, November 1, 2004|
Tsana Associates win Lloyds TSB Root Cause Analysis tender. Lloyds TSB, the UK's fifth biggest bank, have announced the appointment of Tsana Associates to drive a culture change initiative within their UK Group IT operations. Group IT works at the nerve centre of the Lloyds TSB Group, with diverse functions ranging from enabling and supporting nationwide Cashpoint withdrawals, to preventing computer viruses and hackers, to supporting worldwide customer service centres. This department creates, develops and innovates the technology that supports over 16 million personal customers, over 2.5 million internet banking customers, 80,000 personal computers, 4,200 Cashpoint machines and 2,100 Lloyds TSB branches. Group IT is committed to continual development and implementation of exciting technological initiatives that drive new business opportunities, such as creating the Lloyds TSB internet banking site. Tsana Associates who are specialists in process improvement within the IT sector will deliver training in Root Cause Analysis methodology to Group IT Applications Management and Service Delivery. The training has been specifically designed for LTSB and will bring a systems approach to optimising computer performance across the bank's many sites and processes.
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