CIWerx is a program designed and developed by Total Systems Development, a lean systems consulting firm born in 1995 based in Kentucky.
Kentuckiana, let’s make lean transformation easier.
CIWerx is a cost-effective, low-burden and high-collaboration approach to achieving a culture of continuous improvement for lower middle-market manufacturers
Accelerate Value Creation
We bring more than a set of tools. We build a capacity within your organization to implement sustained impactful improvements.
Unleash your organization’s full potential for reliable execution, goal attainment, and sustained daily improvements.
Our simple 12-step process is designed to engage everyone in creating an exceptional system of work that brings a distinct competitive edge.
Lower Total Cost
Improve Quality: Improve process reliability to incur less costs. associated with quality
Increase Cashflow Velocity: Increase production efficiency, reduce capital tied up in inventory, and shorten the chain from order to cash.
Increase Capacity: Understand your organization’s true capacity and eliminate waste that stands in the way of achieving it.
Free Up Floor Space: More efficient layouts, less inventory storage
Maximize resource utilization: Get the most from your people and assets through better throughput and higher productivity
High Employee Satisfaction
Build a Culture of Mutual Trust and Respect: Employees trust and understand leadership’s vision, strategy, and commitment to support. Leadership respects employees’ capability to solve the most meaningful challenges.
High Participation: Foster a fulfilling and engaging workplace
Make Work Easier: Eliminate waste, unevenness, and overburden that inhibit your employees’ ability to make valued contributions.
Invest Less In Consulting, More in Your Business
The CIWerx approach has been crafted to eliminate costly lean consulting practices to deliver more value for less of your budget.
Scale determines price
We blend tried and true transformative practices with tailored solutions
Not everything should be off the shelf nor should it all be customized
The best way we know how
We’ve been in the business of designing lean management systems and nurturing our clients through implementation. Decades of experience have led us to use a value stream perspective on how we deliver value. CIWerx is the culmination of that work – hyper-focus on building competency through 12 incremental transformation steps.
Your specific future
We work with your leadership to create a well-defined vision and plan for your future and a specific end-point for our services that has it’s basis in your current conditions. Well-aligned strategy and development plans coupled with reliable execution make the future achievable. Unleash the full potential of your organization to go from good to great to exceptional.
Our Approach
Simplicity
Methods tailored to the specific needs of lower middle-market businesses that remove unnecessary complexity from the transformation process
Incremental Improvement
Focus on manageable, continuous enhancements rather than drastic overhauls.
Fit For Purpose
Focus on essential actions and resources tailored to specific requirements, eliminating waste and maximizing value.
Local Presence
Provide accessible, on-the-ground support to our clients without the burden of long visits and travel expenses
High Participation
Engage everyone in learning to see waste and participate by making small daily improvements
People Development
People development focused on knowledge, behaviors, and routines builds competencies, leading to habits that form a strong group culture.
Mutual Trust and Respect
Foster a climate where employees trust the direction set by leadership, their commitment to support, and the leadership respects employees’ courage and capability to solve the most pressing problems.
Community of Practice
Facilitate knowledge transfer and collaboration among businesses to amplify positive change.
The Change Elements:
Prepare the Soil
•Learn basic lean concepts
•Begin development of leadership and begin routines
•Establish a company vision for continuous improvement
•Document the current state, create a future state, and identify the tasks to achieve its goals
•Conduct a baseline Calibrate culture assessment and set goals
•Share the vision, goals and demonstrate commitment
•Task the entire organization with finding daily small improvements
Implementation
The implementation process incrementally introduces lean concepts and practices for easier adoption, starting with a strong foundation for continuous improvement before integrating transformative practices. The pace is adjusted to ensure sustainment.
Each step follows a “pilot then proliferate” approach, starting in an initial application area and then expanding throughout the organization:
1. Develop knowledge.
2. Attain skills through practical application.
3. Build competency through coaching.
4. Share learning and experiences to facilitate better proliferation.
People Development
Our goal is right fit lean competencies for your people based on their role in the organization. We leverage a combination of formal knowledge training, hands-on skills application, and coaching on the floor to observe and support your people in gaining competency. All personnel have their own set of development goals that are tracked with coaching focus on discrepancies.
For leadership and management roles, we leverage our own journaling system that becomes the basis for development planning, routines, and coaching dialog.
Community of Practice
Join a cohort of businesses with similar challenges, where learning is peer-driven, not just consultant-led:
• Observe others’ progress
• Learn from others’ successes and mistakes
• Generate new ideas for progress
• Collaborate in resolving common development needs.
Participate in role-specific support circles
Gain insights from Mentor organizations to see best practices firsthand and learn from their journey:
• Observe operational excellence in real-world settings
• Engage in discussions with experienced leaders and staff
• Understand the practical application of lean concepts
• Witness the impact of continuous improvement initiatives
• Gain actionable insights to apply within their own organization
• Build relationships and networks for ongoing support and learning.
Decades of Value Creation
Total Systems Development has helped build cultures of continuous improvement ranging from Fortune’s top 50 to privately held family businesses. We’ve helped companies weather financial storms, avert crises, and accelerate growth through better operations management.
Typical engagements result in improved quality, shorter lead times, improved employee satisfaction, and ROIs >10x our fees. The benefits don’t end the day we step out, either. We leave your organization equipped to continue creating returns.
CIWerx is the next big challenge for us – increasing access to lean consulting for smaller businesses
1996
The Birth of TSD
200+
Companies Helped
Considering getting started?
Committment is Earned
Not Given
We believe that commitment doesn’t happen with the stroke of a pen. That is why we work incrementally with you, earning your trust. Each committment from us and you is for a month at a time. Not happy or need to opt-out? No problem. We want this to be the easiest strategic resourcing decision you’ve ever made. Invest a little in us and we’ll invest a lot in your success.
Tell us about your challenges
Fill out your contact information below and we’ll get in touch to start the conversation. We first determine if CIWerx is a fit for you on the phone or video conferencing. If you wish to proceed, we’ll schedule a site visit to dive deeper into your current situation, present the pricing proposal, and go over what to expect. Most lower middle-market companies will be at $5,250 / month, particularly if there is less than 50 headcount.
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Have Questions?
Frequently Asked
Questions
What do we get for the monthly commitment?
Your determined monthly payment is designed to get your organization a combination of online training, hands-on training, implementation/sustainment coaching, access to the community of practice, and one-on-one development coaching. Our program progresses in “steps”, each step should take roughly 30-60 days. Each step begins with online training, then an on-site workshop to employ the concepts in a pilot area, followed by monitoring the pilot are progress, and finally, the rest of the organization utilizing it as a learning laboratory so they too can implement the concepts in their area.
During the pilot and implementation part of the step, we coach your employees with regular weekly visits. Concurrently, we work with leadership and management through step-specific leadership routines and one-on-one coaching, using the journal as the basis for comparison. With these features, a typical consulting arrangement would cost over $20,000 / month. We’ve worked hard to bring to you at a fraction of that price.
Our company is service-oriented. Will CIWerx help?
Lean concepts are universally applicable – even for service organizations. If there is a process, there is waste. The overall approach remains the same, however the application is slightly different. Part of the reason our CIWerx program is so affordable is because we blend standard with tailored, enabling multiple organizations to share in the standard portion. If we have enough participants who are service-oriented, we can deliver the program at normal rates. If not, it may be a case-by-case consideration of any additional costs (which are likely to not be that significant).
Tell me more about your cancellation policy.
Our contract features a cancellation clause where you can cancel at any time. No questions. No need to explain. We would however like to have the opportunity to present alternatives. It should be noted, however, that the commitment is two ways. Your leadership, management, and other team members must commit to putting earnest effort into the program. We will always let you know when we think we are not seeing the requisite level of participation or grit. We too reserve the right to cancel as we respect your resources as much as you do.
What if we need more help?
Your organization may have challenges that lead you to want more help. We will always do our best to provide what you need within the scope of the CIWerx program. If that is not possible, then our consultants can be available for an additional hourly fee. This fee is $120/hour, much less than our normal $187.50/hour.
We’re a small company, with less than 15 employees. Is there a way you can help us?
Our country’s main street businesses are the backbone of our economy. We will conduct our discovery process as normal for your company to determine if the full program is a good fit, or if you would benefit more from a modified version.
How long does it take to get to the defined exit point for your consultants?
Our process has 12 steps to customer sustainability. Each step takes from 30-60 days. The pace is entirely set by your organization. A word of caution: move slowly and deliberately in this program. Only move on to the next step once the behaviors are consistent with the standards and the organization has stabilized the change. Consider also how much time and resources you can devote towards managing the change. That said, the program will typically take 1-2 years.
Have additional questions?
We’re here to help. Let’s talk.