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An
owner-managed business had grown from nothing to £12m t/o
in 10 years. The client had found a niche market, and had
sustained their development notwithstanding failure to ship
any product on schedule. After the death of one of the founders,
the management team became exclusively sales and marketing
by discipline.
Operational
weaknesses had meant that notwithstanding a full order book,
the firm was not achieving its revenue potential. These weaknesses
were compounded by a lack of control over stock and design
releases, and there was a lack of system.
Collingwood
was hired as operations director to improve operations performance,
in particular throughput. The main actions by Collingwood
were:
- Regain
control of stock. Stock accuracy improved to 95% of items
checked from around 25% of items checked.
- Implement
a works order system to provide control of work proceeding
through the factory.
- Gain
control over Bills of material (BOMs). BOMs became accurate
and we also established control over product releases and
versions.
- Use
the computer system to implement just in time (JIT). Once
implemented JIT helped the client company ensure parts availability
so that product could be assembled.
- Establish
a pro-active
approach to work flow on the shop floor. Shop floor staff
was encouraged to take decisions, and ultimately to drive
the production process via the works order system.
During
the year the client company shipped £20m worth of product,
up from £13m the previous year and with no additional equipment
or resources. This amounted to a productivity increase of
over 50%, and was over 45% higher than the previous highest
recorded company turnover. The changes were achieved by Collingwood
within six months and with 84 days involvement.
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