Operational assessment and action plan · Executive leadership · A company, division or multiple sites
Improve your operations. Your action plan, with costs and benefits, in four weeks.
With implementation support if you need it.
Everyone in the company or agreed scope is invited to an individual, anonymous interview with Aria. Our partners cross-check interview responses and available data, identify the causes of bottlenecks, quantify what can be quantified and work with you to build a plan your executive team can decide on.
4 weeks
From scoping to action plan
Fixed fee
Agreed at the scoping stage
All-senior team
No junior consultants
Everyone in scope
No sampling
01 — THE CHALLENGE
Your metrics show the results.
Your teams know what drives them.
EBIT, lead times, quality, staff turnover: your dashboards show how the organisation is performing, but not why. The causes lie in processes, tools and decisions across departments, where your teams spend their working days. They know what gets in the way, which workarounds they use and what they would change. Yet no one asks them systematically, and each department brings its own account to the executive meeting.
The operational assessment replaces competing accounts with evidence: everyone in the organisation is invited to contribute, causes are linked to their effects, each bottleneck is costed where possible, and you get an action plan you can substantiate.
02 — THE SCOPE
The whole company,
or the scope you choose.
A whole company, division, plant, function or several sites: we agree the scope at the start. The assessment follows activities and workflows rather than the organisation chart, because friction often occurs at handovers. We examine four connected areas.
1
How work actually gets done
The gap between procedures and daily work: skilled time spent on peripheral tasks, undocumented workarounds that keep production running, and the strain on teams who make up for those gaps.
2
Handovers
What each department optimises, and what gets lost between them: waiting time that extends lead times even when no department is running late, rework caused by incomplete information, and margin lost at handovers that no one owns.
3
Tools and data
What systems promise, and how people work around them: tools that fail to deliver the expected benefits, scattered information teams reconstruct manually, and figures you rely on for decisions but cannot verify.
4
Decisions
Formal responsibilities and how decisions are actually made: issues escalated too far or never resolved, questions teams settle themselves because no answer comes, and the time lost while people wait for a decision.
03 — EXAMPLE ACTION PLAN
A full order book.
Aircraft waiting on the ground.
An anonymised example from an independent aircraft maintenance provider.
Aircraft maintenance: 251 people invited, 230 interviews in three days, 187 improvement suggestions and 23 commercial opportunities.
Three bottlenecks account for an estimated €2.1 million in annual direct costs, using conservative estimates. The largest: 6.2 hours per technician each week spent finding documentation, preparing work and making trips to the parts store.
The least visible issue, absent from the stated priorities: pricing inspection quotes, handled by just two people, which keeps aircraft on the ground.
The action plan sets out three workstreams and five decisions: estimated potential gains of €1.1–1.3 million a year at the level reached after 12 months, and cumulative gains of €3 million against €490,000 in implementation costs. It also identifies three ideas for new services to test, based on customer needs reported by the teams.
04 — YOUR ACTION PLAN
An action plan,
not another report
1
A five-page executive decision brief
What works: the practices, teams and recent decisions the plan builds on, which must be protected as other issues are addressed. What holds you back and what it costs: each bottleneck linked to its root cause, a conservative cost estimate, what is established and what still needs checking. The workstreams: three to five, each with an owner, budget, timeframe and expected benefit, in launch order. The decisions to make: those that only the leadership team can resolve, clearly set out for discussion and agreement.
2
The report and supporting evidence
Each finding is linked to the interview responses behind it, its evidence status (reported, documented, observed or verified), how often it occurs and a conservative cost estimate where one can be established.
3
The order of action
An impact–effort matrix and the priorities it establishes: where to start, what can wait and what is not worth the effort.
4
The role of automation
What AI or automation can take on, activity by activity, and what needs to be in place.
5
The opportunities
A brief for each opportunity identified by your teams: the need, supporting signals, available capabilities, an initial business case and the first customer test.
05 — OUR APPROACH
Four steps,
in four weeks
Listen to everyone. Analyse in depth. Make decisions together.
Week 01
Scope: priorities and questions
Together, we agree the scope, sponsors, relevant documents and decisions to be made. Your dashboards show how the organisation is performing; the causes lie in processes, tools and decisions across departments. This is where your teams encounter bottlenecks and see practical opportunities to improve. The fixed fee is agreed at this stage.
Week 02
Listen: understand how work gets done
Everyone within scope is invited to an individual, anonymous interview with Aria, in writing or by voice. Participants describe their day-to-day work: bottlenecks, workarounds, dependencies between teams, what already works and their suggestions. The interviews are consolidated, anonymised and organised by priority, then analysed by our partners.
Week 03
Analyse: identify root causes
Spentia’s partners look beyond the symptoms. They identify root causes, how their effects spread, recurring problems and their financial impact.
Week 04
Decide: agree your action plan
You receive your action plan: what to address, in what order, with a named owner, budget and expected benefit, including the role automation can play. It opens with a five-page executive decision brief; the report and appendices provide the evidence. We review it together so you can make the decisions.
06 — WHO IT IS FOR, AND WHEN
Executive leadership of a mid-sized company or division
Results fall short of the resources invested, and explanations differ from one department to the next.
Operations or site leadership
Lead times keep increasing despite new hires, while overtime makes up for gaps in the procedures.
Executive and business development leadership
Your teams are already hearing customer requests that your current offering does not meet.
Leaders starting a new role, or following an acquisition
Test your priorities against your teams’ experience to build your first 100-day plan.
Finance leadership
Margins are shrinking, but no single line in the income statement explains why.
Investment funds
A portfolio company’s 100-day plan, or a review during the holding period.
