- Chemical Industry Practice
As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the customer – an international supplier of coating systems – was faced with a sharp increase in demand for specific product lines. In addition, the company management formulated a growth strategy that focused on significantly increasing sales volumes in the short term. Both were to be operationalized in the short term and quickly produce initial business results.
The scope of the project included the formulation of a global growth initiative for the production sites as well as its implementation and overarching coordination and tracking at an operational level. Reports were submitted to the Global VP Operations at all times.
As part of the project, a standardized identification and analysis process was set up, analyses were implemented at more than ten locations on three continents and improvement measures were tracked centrally. The cost effects from short-term capacity expansion and volume increases amounted to an annualized EUR 0.4 – 2 million per location.
Profile
Company size
Location
International
Period
12 months
Branch
- Chemical Industry Practice
Percentage of individual services
- reactive situation stabilization
- holistic concept development
- risk analysis production performance
- Creation of implementation concept
- production analyses and improvement measures
- project management and implementation consulting
Challenge
- Short period of time to leverage potential
- Global orientation of the program and international coordination of sub-projects and measures
- Identification of the relevant value streams and bottleneck processes among the > 40 plants
- Intercultural teams with different characters, leadership and communication strategies
Procedure
- Program and method development: Development of a standardized procedure using classic production management methods: value stream analysis, bottleneck management, lean management
- Location identification: Definition of selection criteria to identify relevant plants and product families
- Preparation: Implementation of off-site due diligence for identified plants
- Analysis: Planning and implementation of "on-site" analyses with internal (client-side, local) and external (client-side, global) experts for the respective local problem
- Project management: follow-up of the improvement measures developed
- Reporting: Data consolidation and reporting of progress to management
Results
- Implementation and coordination of more than 10 sub-projects in plants in the USA, Mexico, Brazil, the EU and Turkey
- Significant increase in output for in-demand product lines in a short period of time based on regional market conditions
- Cost effects of EUR 04 - 2 million per plant, for example by in-sourcing order volumes outsourced due to capacity bottlenecks or reducing unit costs by improving OEE on the production facilities
The project in detail
Project Highlights
High complexity due to international program orientation
High time pressure to achieve measurable, relevant economic results
Broad technical requirements due to different production forms and facilities
