How do you become the most competitive factory in Europe? How do you reduce failure costs or respond to rapidly changing, customer-specific product requirements? Delivering the best performance to your customers and adapting quickly to changing market conditions requires maximum factory utilisation. Reliable output and scalability of production processes is essential.

Improving factory performance demands efficient processes, effective production control and a clear process for introducing new products. There are many technical tools available for this, yet we believe that consideration for people and behaviour is an essential element of a sustainable performance.

Lean production goes much further than adopting technical tips and tricks. Important as they are, they are simply a means of staying ahead of the competition. To be truly successful, you need to address the culture, mentality and behaviour of both managers and workers.

We use a combination of lean tools (e.g. Kaizen, 5S and CEDAC) and specific interventions in behaviour such as coaching to raise the levels of ownership and leadership in your organisation. Improvement and ‘lean thinking’ become a natural component of your company.

Production management and continuous improvement are the basis of enhanced factory performance. The correct KPIs and an effective meeting structure give your company and managers the capacity to respond adequately to customer requirements. They also help to create a culture of continuous improvement. We have developed the six principles of Culture of Excellence just for this.

How do you increase production speed, improve product quality, and move from fire-fighting to fire prevention? Improving your factory’s performance requires a pragmatic approach. That involves measuring and analysing the OEE as well as training and coaching employees, supervisors and managers to analyse errors and downtimes. By carrying out specific ‘root cause’ analysis on production downtime, you can implement improvements that have a direct effect on the bottom line.

To remain competitive, innovation is necessary. The biggest challenge in any NPD process is ensuring an efficient product introduction while maintaining manufacturing performance. This requires the direct involvement of your production people in the development process. Moreover, your employees must learn to cope with modernisation and new standards.