Context

Leading company in the packaging manufacturing worldwide products of different sizes and technological characteristics.

The process consists of product development with the customer (often custom), material purchasing, receiving, welding and finishing, packaging, and shipping.

Issue

Following major organizational changes, the company found itself in economic difficulties, leading management to question the current operating approach.

Improvement actions

Management chose to carry out a 360-degree action to cover all company aspects and avoid leaving any indefinite areas.

First, a detailed mapping was carried out using the SIPOC-VSM methodology for the primary processes, with the characterization of all company indicators (flow index, constraint saturation, economic indicators, inventory, lead time, etc.) and existing flows, in order to develop a structured improvement plan and sequential approach oriented to the current and desired constraint of the company.

The improvement plan was developed with the following actions:

  • Commercial - organization of the daily planning meeting with the key figures in the supply chain, CRM development, and price list standardization;
  • Lean Manufacturing - zero-based setup of the organizational structure of the production departments (KPIs, daily meetings, data-driven decision-making), a proactive safety system, and the main improvement techniques based on inefficiencies with the greatest economic-operational impact (SMED, autonomous and professional maintenance, OPF, etc.);
  • Governance - governance and performance-management system for the entire company, with a management software and meetings to execute strategic objectives;
  • Preventive maintenance - implementation of the main Lean Maintenance techniques, with a split between autonomous and professional maintenance and visual management on the shop floor line, implementation of CMMS maintenance management software (for both departments and infrastructure), kitting and 5S in the workshop;
  • Business model innovation - use of the BSC-SOB method to define the current business model AS-IS and to innovate sales channels.

Result

The results achieved were surprising, thanks to the first-time adoption of best-in-class management methodologies and the staff’s proactive commitment in using an industrial model, professional and proven worldwide.

The staff was particularly surprised by the management techniques, as they were objective—previously considered the entrepreneur’s responsibility—who had to develop a management approach based on amateur thinking, often creative, as far as possible with common sense, but always subjective. By adopting the Operating Model, decisions became objective and made based on numbers (data-driven). All staff is involved in company goals, and actions stem from a tested and consolidated standard, removing the need to come up with new solutions every time.

Some results achieved: +100% visibility of commercial opportunities, -47% of total lead time, +87% plant capacity, -61% scrap, -53% financial immobilizations.