Public sector enterprises must improve performance – Amunugama

Over the last few years Sri Lanka has enjoyed a 6% - 7% growth, mainly attributable to steady, sustained growth by the country’s private sector. It is often forgotten that the private sector has been the growth impetus for the nation. This was observed by the Minister of Enterprise Development and Investment Promotion, Dr. Sarath Amunugama speaking at the launch of Sri Lanka’s newest consultancy, a joint venture between Somaratna Consultants and Omnex Inc of the US.

Dr. Amunugama’s remarks additionally indicated that since the next two years could prove to be challenging for manufacturers, it was now the turn of the public sector and state companies to contribute to the country's growth by improving / maximising performance. As such they badly needed services like Lean Six Sigma to improve their output. He also added that listening to comments made by Dave Watkins (International Vice President or Omnex Inc) and K.C. Somaratna (Managing Director of Somaratna Consultants) concerning the importance of having procedures in place to facilitate planning had led to his realisation that there was a whole new area of knowledge needed to achieve this success.

The launch of this joint venture by Somaratna Consultants and Omnex Inc, held this week it is hoped will prove to benefit medium and large scale Sri Lankan companies as the newly formed Lean Six Sigma consultancy guarantees several valuable and quantifiable benefits to clients. These include a 50% improvement in throughput, a 50% inventory reduction and a 20% decrease in operating expenses, all in 6 months.

In addition, the consultancy pledges to achieve a Return on Investment (ROI) of greater than 300%, a 33% increase in profitability and 16% bottom line improvement, within in 6 months. They also promise to assess and quantify business opportunities ahead of time while integrating Lean into existing corporate strategy using Lean vision, roadmap and Lean ROI. This is all estimated to occur in six months while bottom line results may be expected in as little as three months.