Gamechangerz Culture of Excellence
On June 19, 2025, the Gamechangerz Culture of Excellence event took place. This time it was all about continuous improvement and optimally aligning processes, performance and culture, with the goal of delivering maximum customer value, as efficiently as possible and with minimal waste.
Whereas previous Gamechangerz meetings were usually organized from one of our “verticals” – food, retail or manufacturing industry – this time we brought together speakers and guests from a variety of sectors. Because operational excellence is a topical theme that plays a key role in many companies when we consider, for example, increasing competitive pressure and focus on cost control.
In the beautiful industrial setting of the Krachtcentrale in Huizen, colleague Frenky van Esdonk kicked off our event. Frenky knows better than anyone what it takes to continuously improve an organization and talked about the Gwynt approach. With intensive guidance based on six principles, the entire organization – from management to shop floor – is set in motion and challenged to become one step better every day.
The next presentation was by Ruud Kloek, MD of Madern, active in the production of tools and machinery for international companies in the paper processing industry. Ruud recently completed a Culture of Excellence process together with Gwynt as a customer. Through a shoulder-to-shoulder approach of Gwynt and Madern, teams were transformed from functionally driven to product driven and the number of management layers in the organization was greatly reduced. The results showed a marked improvement including a 21% leadtime reduction and ~30% reduction in project costs.
Then the stage was set for Maarten van der Aa, Sales Director at Leen Bakker. Operational excellence is also an important topic in retail: “How do we ensure that everything comes together on the store floor and the focus remains on the customer and sales?” Maarten showed how at Leen Bakker the combination of periodically and transparently sharing financial results with store managers as well as investing in a culture of accessibility, transparency and and entrepreneurship has created more commitment and pride among employees and thus an improved basis for continued growth.
Concluding the presentation was Roef van Duijn, Managing Director at Van Loon Convenience. Roef has more than 30 years of experience in managing production environments in the food sector and shared his extensive experiences with attendees. Continuous improvement, as the name suggests, should never stop. It is often possible to improve on the existing situation, but to keep it up and not fall back into old patterns is often the biggest challenge. The title of the presentation was also “continuous improvement is not about improving”; rather, it is about continuing to seek a balance between the ideal production environment and the pace of change that an organization can handle. Actually, as the Japanese say, “it takes 30 years to really understand a production environment and lift it to the highest level.”
Conclusion
Operational Excellence is a process that requires constant attention, but therefore also leads to an increase in added value (“customer centricity”), an improvement in the organization’s agility and more employee engagement. Today’s presentations also taught us that Operational Excellence is an indispensable element in any industry to remain relevant as a company in the future.
Need help achieving a Culture of Excellence? Gwynt helps companies become and remain successful together. Feel free to contact us if you want to know more about this topic.
