Bayer’s Order to Cash (O2C) Operational Excellence programme was developed in 2020 in line with the total O2C 2023 strategy to establish a continuous improvement culture to drive value into the business. Previously, direction was issued from the top down. We wanted our operational teams around the world to drive for Continuous Improvement and OE, i.e. taking ownership for issues, using facts & figures to derive solutions, focusing on digitization & automation and working across different teams and functions as ONE team. Additionally, in our world of continuous business transformation, OE is central to delivering long term success and engendering commitment.

The programme is now well underway, with a clear vision comprising 5 core elements (Strategy, Culture, Projects, Capabilities, and Community). As well as focusing on business outputs: the ‘WHAT’, (for example through the delivery of Lighthouse projects) there has been a strong focus on the ‘HOW’: the programme has developed capabilities and built an O2C community empowered to place a constant focus on continuous improvement.

• Over 180 employees and 20 trainers have been up-skilled in a bespoke Continuous Improvement training which focuses on Lean Six Sigma, Daily Management System, structured Problem Solving and Automation/RPA development. Another 100 training slots scheduled until end of 2021 are full. 18% of the global workforce has been trained in Lean Six Sigma (LSS) with further IL6S resources available.
• The newly formed OE Community is strong with a dedicated leadership team. It meets regularly to share ideas and build plans in line with the O2C strategy and comprises 42 OE Leads & continuous improvement evangelists. News and celebrations are shared in a range of creative ways with the wider O2C community and Senior leadership. For example, the Operational Excellence awards are now a bi-annual event. Teams love dialling in from across the world to vote live on one of the 3 award categories (the ‘People’s Choice’ Award).
• Over 171 projects have been initiated across multiple teams in 29 locations, including 12 RPAs. Performance improvements are many, for example:
  • 18% higher order entry automation rate
  • Ambitious target to reduce 5% of total workforce working hours worldwide
  • 80% of the reduction target of these working hours savings (WHS) has been identified and 25% of the target of WHS has been realised
  • 30% faster implementation time for IT changes within 2 months (goal: 50% by EO 2021)
  • 1% reduction in Overdues in Consumer Health and 1.2% improvement in Pharma since Jan 2021

• Many projects have delivered strong joint value customer benefits:
  • Reducing fees & fines
  • Increasing shipment of full truck-loads
  • Optimizing order patterns based on analytics
  • Optimising Ways of Working with customers (e.g. US Trade Terms / UK Returns process) 

The programme has recently expanded its vision beyond ‘Operational Excellence’ and next year will embrace a wider remit of ‘O2C Excellence’ with the aim of broadening the vision of the O2C Community to think total End to End, particularly further embracing the customer in all that we do.