The fine tuning of your business operations
Having a part of your business in another country require a precise control of the operations; too often we have seen companies with a proven record of successes in their country of origin failing to implement an efficient organization in their overseas branches. The key words of our approach are: presence and metrics.
Manufacturing and Lean Production
Companies are looking to base their decisions on more than just costs, they’re looking to shorten lead times, to reduce the inventory they have to carry. European companies who wants to have a strong presence in the USA need to have a manufacturing plant in North America in order to implement a better quality control and a point of reference for the overseas market; but in the recent years, after the production has been moved to low-wages countries, sites that have remained in Europe and North America have to cope with ever-increasing price competition. The key to success is finding the right mix of approaches like Kanban, one-piece flow, advanced planning systems, overall equipment efficiency and self-directed work teams, and tie everything together with the processes in the European facilities. We work on overall manufacturing competitiveness, determining the status of manufacturing technology, defining the right make-versus-buy concepts, and establishing new global manufacturing networks. We advise clients on capital spending projects and help them to improve the return or yield from existing equipment through overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) and maintenance strategies. We have a range of flow, productivity and waste minimization techniques, but we also apply a management philosophy that makes people feel involved and motivated. Our approach focuses on identifying the Value Stream of the process and benchmarking the process with internal and external metrics; the headquarters of the company will always have an up-to-date picture of the overseas productivity.
Cross-functional Management
An efficient production department can make a difference in today’s market, but there are times when a benefit for a particular area in the company actually hurts the company as a whole. Especially for companies with sites in different continents, having a direct link of communication between different functions or between the same functions in different locations is essential to create value and avoid redundancies and delays. Our approach is to give tools to the managers to understand the company’s bigger picture. Cross-functional integration is when the measures of success for an area look across departmental boundaries to search for the effect on the company as a whole. We start with an assessment of key functions, comparing the informational, reporting and cost advantages of centralization versus decentralization. As part of this work, we quantify the benefits of moving or maintaining various corporate roles and reviewing the product design workflow.