Mr Potts: Morning Barry, Morning Lorna and Gavin
Barry/Lorna/Gavin: Good morning Mr Potts
Mr Potts: I have called this meeting together because Head Office has sent us some consultants to work on efficient business process improvement. This is Mr Turnbull
Xavier: Call me Xavier please, thank you Mr Potts, and this is my team Bettina, Oliver and Sebastian. As Mr Potts stated, I am here to work on looking at processes working in your business and seeing if we can improve upon them to make them more efficient. What does that mean? I will speak to each of you in turn about what you do and you can tell me what you think can be done better.
Gavin: So are you just taking notes of what we say?
Xavier: No I’m also going to put it in a report and one of my team will make a pretty graph from it. We need to be agile about this.
Barry: Well the grapes come into me, Lorna here puts them in the wash machine and then Gavin packs the grapes whilst I forklift them into a truck.
Bettina: And what water do you use for cleaning the grapes?
Xavier: Great question Bettina, I like your thinking
Barry: Well we used to use Evian but now we use Peckham Spring
Xavier: Interesting, interesting, I’m not quite aware of that brand
Lorna: It’s excellent Mr Turnbull, sorry Xavier. It can wash several grapes at the same time
Sebastian: And where does the truck come in? Is there ever any spillage?
Xavier: Terrific question Sebastian, yes how do the grapes come in? Is there any spillage?
Gavin: Over there and no
Sebastian: And what if we moved the machine from there to here, so the truck can come to this point?
Kevin: Why?
Sebastian: Saving fuel
Xavier: Exactly Sebastian great point, and we are all totally into saving the planet in our company. We are for the next generation.
Lorna: Probably because we’d need to build a new docking station using cement that came from a factory in China that pumped out CO2 into the atmosphere before loading the cement onto a ship with large motors pumping out more pollution, not to mention the transportation from the dock to the wholesaler, retailer and eventually the customer
Xavier: Yes I think you are not quite seeing the bigger picture here
Lorna: How?
Xavier: Ha well I haven’t got all day to explain it to you
Oliver: And is your forklift truck electric, petrol or diesel based Mr…
Barry: Hitherington-Smythe
FX: Lorna and Gavin stifle a laugh with a coughing sound
Oliver: Mr Hitherington-Smythe.
Barry: Electric
Xavier: Well that’s great news, and I’m glad to see you guys think the same way as us
Barry: We’re like twins.
Xavier: Ha, sure
Bettina: And what about tea breaks? How often are those?
Gavin: Well we celebrate Christmas once a year so we treat ourselves to tea then
Xavier: Well that’s great news, team, that doesn’t seem excessive at all
Kevin: Sometimes we even have a jammie dodger
Xavier: Now lets just focus on that jammie dodger. Who brings in the jammie dodgers? And is that during work time?
Lorna: I get them during my lunchtime from the petty cash tin
Xavier: Great, great, now we’re getting somewhere. Where is that cash tin based?
Mr Potts: In my office
Xavier: Right, well what are we thinking team?
Sebastian: How much is in the tin?
Gavin: A fiver
Oliver: and how much is a packet of Jammie dodgers?
Xavier: And you have never thought to have Vanilla Creams?
Barry: No
Xavier: Why not? I love Vanilla Creams
Barry: We don’t
Xavier: OK, OK well I can’t push the point, but I’m wondering you know if Jammie dodgers is the most efficient use of that fiver?
Gavin: Well we sometimes save on toilet paper
Xavier: Excellent news! Did you hear that team? These guys are really thinking. So how do you save on your paper?
Gavin: We occasionally get these reports sent to us from Head Off…Ouch!
Mr Potts: Sorry Gavin, these muscle spasms in my arm are coming back.
Xavier: I’m so sorry Mr Potts, you better see a specialist we wouldn’t want that habit to get in the way of any of your efficient business processes would we?
Mr Potts: No Mr Turnbull we would not
Xavier: Xavier please, exactly so, exactly so. Well team have we got enough material here?
Sebastian: I think so
Xavier: Then it’s time to crank up the highly efficient software and show you guys some amazing graphs
Barry: Can’t wait
Xavier: You better believe it.
Barry: Do you mind if I ask a question?
Xavier: Go for it Mr Hitherington-Smythe
Barry: How much are you charging for this?
Xavier: Ha well you don’t need to worry about that, whatever we charge you’ll make up for in loads of savings in efficiency
Gavin: Well yes we’ll have toilet paper for year…ouch
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