Our client’s business had gone through a period of rapid growth through acquisition. Although operational performance was reasonable, senior management decided that there should be increased focus on efficiency and Operational Excellence as part of a program of profitability improvement.
Based on our long-standing relationship and familiarity with our client’s operations, we were asked to conduct in-depth assessments in five countries across Manufacturing and Sales. This was followed by a programme of implementation to ensure that benefits would hit the bottom-line

• Carry out in-depth assessments of manufacturing to identify and quantify potential benefits.
• Assess maturity of Performance Management and provide recommendations for improvement
• Carry out a sales-margin analysis to identify low-margin products
• Develop and run a margin improvement program

Operations

• A pilot site was chosen to conduct the initial assessment and learnings from this assessment were incorporated into the remaining sites
• Each assessment was scheduled to take approximately six weeks during which the entire manufacturing process was reviewed in-depth. This included analysis of performance data to identify equipment and material losses and to prioritise further analysis according to the size of opportunity.
• An assessment of KPIs was also completed to identify any gaps and weaknesses and to understand how KPIs were being used in practice to improve performance.
• Production planning was also assessed as weaknesses in planning can often adversely impact efficiency in production, especially when late or frequent changes to plan result in additional or excessive changeovers.
• Machine changeovers were looked at in detail to identify ways of reducing changeover times. In some plants, improvements to changeover times were achieved through a combination of better planning and scheduling of products and support areas. Operators received additional training and additional, inexpensive, shop-floor equipment was installed to facilitate faster changeovers times.
• In-depth line observations were carried out. The findings showed there was opportunity to reduce personnel through better organisation and resource planning at shop-floor level.

Sales

• A detailed analysis of product margin was carried out to identify low-margin SKUs. It also identified the complexities that had resulted in poor margin and this information was used to initiate a program of margin recovery. In many cases, renegotiation of contracts led to an improvement in profitability.

• OEE
• Root-cause Analysis
• Performance Management / KPIs
• Manning Studies
• Product Flow Analysis / Internal Logistics
• Sales Margin Analysis
• Sales Management