The plant of a supplier for OEMs had only recently been centrally geared towards large series with maximum order sizes - in a market with strong Asian competitors. The interim manager - at the time still in a permanent position at the supplier's parent company - had the task of keeping the Asian competition at bay.
Market analyses and discussions with customers showed that shorter delivery times, smaller order quantities and customer-specific product variants would provide an important market advantage. To achieve this goal, the interim manager had to develop the plant into a flexible and powerful unit. In doing so, he focused on transforming the process-maximized production into an effective lean system.
Management and workforce motivated for lean methods
In view of the changes from the recent past, the management team and workforce as well as the employee representatives were very sceptical about reorganizing the processes again. How could people who were convinced by process-oriented production be motivated to take a new, significantly different step? This is where the interim manager found the right starting points.
There was a specialist in the group of companies who had studied with Taichi Ohno for many years. He invited this person to report on his experiences with the great master of lean production. Using a simple simulation game, he created an understanding of the lean methodology and was able to convince the management team of the benefits.
The interim manager got the workforce on board by involving the employees. During a tour of the plant, he asked the production group leaders to decide for themselves which production area should be transformed according to the lean system first. The group leaders chose a relatively complex production process.
Employees heavily involved in the development of lean production
In the second step, the interim manager formed a team together with those involved to work on a lean island. Experts trained the project participants in the lean system. In the next step, the team collected the necessary data, planned production and mapped the changed structures in a model. The lean experts moderated this process. Actions and decisions were made by the team.
Specialists, interim managers and the project team refined the model together and finally implemented it in a real production system. The new production process was very successful. After just a short time, the other group leaders in production were asking when their area would finally be adapted.
Visualization continuously improves processes
Of course, the planned performance targets were not achieved right from the start. This required the next important step: visualization. Important data and parameters were visualized on a board in the island on a shift/day basis so that everyone could follow how the process continuously improved - until the planned targets were achieved after a short time. To ensure the further development of lean structures in the company, the interim manager developed a strong manager into a lean manager.
Lean methods make a significant contribution to maintaining competitiveness
The introduction of lean production enabled important steps to be taken towards maintaining competitiveness and improving customer relationships.
On this basis, the temporary position of the current interim manager was extended - with the clear objective of bringing the production of additional products into the plant and introducing further methods of operational excellence.
