White Paper – Curing The Innovation ‘Growing Pain’

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See how we have helped clients across many sectors solve their business problems and deliver tangible benefits

White Paper – Curing The Innovation ‘Growing Pain’

In this article we focus on the innovation/NPD process and discuss how lean thinking can be used to simplify the process, accelerate time to market and drive increased profitability.

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White Paper – Successfully Navigating Business Growing Pains

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White Paper – Successfully Navigating Business Growing Pains

In this white paper we share our process improvement methods for successfully navigating business growing pains.

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White Paper – Achieving Operational Excellence in Pharma & Biotech

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White Paper – Achieving Operational Excellence in Pharma & Biotech

In this white paper we share our learning from working with several pharma and biotech companies in order to illustrate the best approach OPEX and continuous improvement in their highly regulated environment.

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Insulin Pen Manufacturer – Batch Record Error Reduction

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Insulin Pen Manufacturer – Batch Record Error Reduction

Insulin Pen assembly and packaging operation with throughput of 115 million pens per year. High error rate in batch records resulting in significant (weeks) delays, inventory build up awaiting release, and high level of QC effort spent resolving issues (4 hours per day)

Case-Study-Pharma-Batch-Record-Error-Reduction

56% error rate due to missing signatures, missing data, incorrect times and dates.
Unclear explanations for line stoppage and quality events.
Goal – Right First Time (RFT) for batch records of 75% by end 2013

Problem tackled using Rapid Improvement Kaizen approach.
50 improvements proposed.
15 improvements implemented during the event including:

  • Simplifying batch records
  • Visual management to track recurring errors
  • Improving definitions to clarify and mistake proof

Further 30 improvements actioned post the event since required validation for
compliance.

Assembly – RFT increased from 39% – >50%.
Packaging – RFT increased from 44% – >51%.
Trends suggest RFT target will be achieved by mid 2013 (6 months ahead of schedule).
Reduced QC workload allows 3 QC technicians to be transferred to new production
line.
Inventory reduced.
Estimated annual savings overall of 400,000 Eur.

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Global Biotech – Innovative Training Methods to Reduce Deviations

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Global Biotech – Innovative Training Methods to Reduce Deviations

A global biotech company suffering significant losses due to delays in starting up production. Additional major costs incurred in rework associated with deviation management.
Case-Study-Pharma-Innovative-Training-Methods-To-Reduce-Deviations
In one year alone the formula tion support team raised 88 deviations during the ramp up phase of 98 process change projects. As a result, 25% projects were delivered late. The goal was to reduce the number of deviations during ramp up of production during process change by 50%.
3 day kaizen event involving operators and technicians. Key Improvements:
  • A more effective, standardized method of training operators in new validation protocols.
  • Operator involvement in defining the content and the most effective method of training to meet their needs
  • Clear definitions of roles and responsibilities during validation protocol training and process management
  • A template for the training manual which trainers adapt to meet the specific needs of the process change protocol (SOP)
  • Weekly process reviews with operators to review issues, propose and implement solutions and sustain the improvements
Three month after implementation ZERO deviations were raised during 20 validation runs. Operators also reported that the new training methods removed a lot of the frustration and rework. Estimated annual savings of over €700,000.
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Pisa Saint-Gobain – Inventory Reduction To Release Cash to Fund Growth

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Pisa Saint-Gobain – Inventory Reduction To Release Cash to Fund Growth

The Pisa plant is one of Saint-Gobain Glass’s oldest glass manufacturing facilities. With a very broad product range the business carried large inventory of products of different colours, thicknesses, coatings and sizes (>1200 SKUs). The nature of the glass manufacturing process necessitates long campaign lengths to achieve stability. With manufacturing lead times greatly in excess of customer lead times the supply chain strategy was to stock against forecast. This required two large warehouses on site for plus satellite warehouses across Italy .
Case-Study-Pisa-Saint-Gobain-Glass-

The challenge was to find a way of dramatically reducing the inventory to provide space for the installation of a new coater and allow the sale of surplus land to pay for it. An across the board percentage inventory reduction was unlikely to succeed – previous stock reduction efforts had resulted in temporary reductions followed by unexpected stock outs and then a gradual drift back to high stocking levels.

  • Analysis of demand patterns and demand variability (by SKU family)
  • Data analysis to focus in on critical product families and value streams
  • Value Stream Mapping (VSM) project selection Kaizen event with team to identify high impact improvement projects
  • Implementation of new production planning rules and buffer stock levels based on runners/repeaters/specials
  • Warehouse layout redesigned
  • Loading operations simplified
  • Reduction in inventory levels by more than 20% without any adverse customer impact
  • Reduction in storage area by more than 30%
  • Validated savings of €600,000
  • Broad engagement of workforce in Lean Kaizen improvement processes

A longer version of this case study appeared  in UK Excellence Magazine

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Standard Life – Support of Process Excellence Programme in Financial Services

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Standard Life – Support of Process Excellence Programme in Financial Services

Standard Life plc is a savings and investment business, with headquarters in Edinburgh and global operations. It has 1.5 million shareholders in more than 50 countries and over 6 million customers. In response to commercial, regulatory and risk pressures in 2008 Standard Life started implementing a process management framework to support the necessary business transformation
PowerPoint Presentation

To establish process management structure and process excellence programme in
order to:

  • Define and implement the right process architecture and business operating
    model
  • Build and embed lean continuous improvement skills and culture
  • Deliver improved efficiency and effectiveness through lean six sigma

Standard Life wanted to run an in-house programme to build skills and
capability within the organisation.
Process Insight helped them in a number of ways:

  • designing the training programme
  • certifying their BBs and MBBs
  • setting up internal GB certification aligned with British Quality Foundation accreditation standards
  • coaching and mentoring to MBB level

Standard Life have run a very successful process excellence programme which won the ‘Best Start-up Programme’ at the European IQPC awards 2010.
They supported it by building their in-house process excellence skills and capability and now have strength and depth with well over 100 GBs, 30 BBs and 5 MBBs.
Process Insight have provided the in-house team with expert guidance and mentoring to build their skills allow the programme to flourish.

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TMD Friction – Commercial Effectiveness, Pricing Process Re-design

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TMD Friction – Commercial Effectiveness, Pricing Process Re-design

TMD Friction is the world’s number one manufacturer of brake friction materials in the original equipment market of the automotive and brake industry, producing one million brake friction products daily. Highly experienced in application of Lean Sigma in manufacturing TMD wanted to expand process improvement activities into their commercial operations.
Case-Study-TMD
TMD were under severe price pressure from their OEM customers. They had a ‘cost – plus’ pricing approach and consequently were not getting full value for many of their high performance products. The goal was to design and implement a value based pricing process for the commercial team which could be rolled out through their global activities leading to an increase in average selling prices.
  • Design and implementation of market and customer segmentation process
  • Implementation of value based pricing model and tools
  • Design and implementation and roll out of new operational Pricing Management process
  • Training of global commercial teams
  • Increase in average selling prices in both automotive and lorry markets
  • Engagement of commercial teams in process improvement activities
As TMD themselves say on their website “Lean management does not just play a significant role in production – it equally affects all divisions of the organisation – the sales structure in the replacement division as much as the purchasing department, etc.”
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Hertel – Targeting the Business Critical Issues

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Hertel – Targeting the Business Critical Issues

Hertel is a leading international, multi-disciplinary, industrial services company. It supports its customers with access solutions, insulation, corrosion protection, mechanical, offshore and specialist services. Their customers are in the Oil and Gas, Process, Energy and Offshore industries. Hertel had started a relatively small scale conventional Lean Six Sigma programme. Although they had delivered some projects they were not seen as business critical.
Case-Study-Hertel
The company had a Black Belt and some Green Belts in the UK but their projects had been confined to finance where there was some sponsorship. However, unless the Lean Six Sigma team started delivering real benefits in ‘main stream activities’, where sponsorship was weak, the future of the programme was in doubt. The goal was to identify some high impact projects that would demonstrate the relevance to the business.
Using the Process Insight Strategy to Action Process, we worked with the leadership to:
  • identify the major gaps / threats to delivering their strategy
  • identify the ‘Big Ys’ – the 3 – 5 critical few ‘initiatives’ needed to close that gap over the next 1 – 2 years.
  • select one of these on which to focus the Lean Six Sigma resource.
The selected Big Y was to turn around a ‘problem’ contract which was coming up for renewal in 1 year. It was with a strategic customer and covered access services on a high hazard chemical complex. A business director then sponsored a 2 day VSM project selection workshop with a cross section of site personnel. A good shared understanding of the current state was gained. The ‘pain points’ that drove inefficiency were identified and a prioritised list of scoped out projects was generated.
The client was delighted to now have a credible improvement plan. It incorporated quick hits, Just do it, Green Belt and Black Belt projects. The plan was owned by the leadership and had sufficient buy in at all levels for successful implementation.
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FujiFilm Diosynth Biotechnology – Driving Strategic Transformation with Lean Sigma

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FujiFilm Diosynth Biotechnology – Driving Strategic Transformation with Lean Sigma

FujiFilm Diosynth Biotechnology have used Lean Sigma as the basis for driving strategic transformation. Learn more about the innovative approach they have used to take process excellence from ‘backroom to boardroom’ and adapt and tailor the Lean Sigma methods to suit different aspects of the business.

fujifilm

Rapidly growing in a dynamic and emerging market, the business is founded on high quality R and D and flexible and responsive manufacturing.
The main focus of the FujiFilm transformation has been to shift the organization’s ‘mindset’ to that of a service business. This has required a shift from traditional large corporate manufacturing thinking into a highly innovative, agile, customer-centric approach.
Key strategic challenges essential to drive growth and increase profitability have been addressed.

  • Providing unique and tailored services for customers
  • driving increased productivity in all business activities
  • reducing lead times and increasing flexibility
  • ‘Size of the Prize’ analysis was carried out to identify priority focus areas for improvement
  • A new deployment vision and roadmap was developed strengthening the programme alignment with the business strategic objectives and required outcomes
  • Leadership involvement and engagement with the programme was deepened
  • Critically the programme scope was extended out beyond manufacturing to cover other strategically vital business activities e.g. R and D, QC, Engineering support, Sales and Operations Planning
  • To date over 40 Green Belts and 330 Yellow belts have been trained, and have completed improvement projects and Kaizen events
  • 5S and visual management has been rolled out across all key manufacturing and laboratory areas (including R and D)
  • Lean Daily Management processes have been introduced
  • Improvement activities have been undertaken tackling wide range of issues including reducing process cycle times, increasing QC productivity, increasing Right First Time, reducing losses and reducing equipment downtime
  • A new manufacturing structure and shift pattern implemented on time and on budget
  • Annualised hard benefit of >£1.8 million
  • Significant increase in productivity with 20% reduction in headcount
  • Record number of new product introductions into manufacturing with 60% reduction in new product introduction cycle time
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Saint Gobain – Global Manufacturing Excellence Programme

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Saint Gobain – Global Manufacturing Excellence Programme

Saint Gobain Glass is a leading global manufacturer of float glass and coated glass products. In an increasingly competitive market they were faced with the urgent need to drive significant improvement in manufacturing and supply chain efficiencies and reduce costs. A key platform for delivering this was the implementation of a global manufacturing excellence programme.
Saint-Gobain-Glass

Saint Gobain Glass needed support to design and implement a programme to drive productivity improvement and share best practices between 37 float lines and 17 coating plants around the World. Lean Sigma was selected as the improvement method.
The objectives of the global programme were to:

  • Design and implement a programme to build a sustainable continuous
    improvement capability
  • Develop a framework for sharing best practices
  • Support launch and delivery of improvement projects in each plant to drive
    productivity and quality improvement and reduce costs
  • Design of Manufacturing Excellence Vision, Roadmap, and supporting
    implementation plan
  • Development of best practice assessment and auditing tools and methods
  • Training over 400 Master Black Belts, Black Belts, and Green Belts from 20
    countries
  • Coaching and mentoring of global deployment team to guide successful rollout
    to each plant
  • Project coaching support to ensure successful project and benefits delivery

Business impact over a 3 year period:

  • World Glass Manufacturing Excellence Programme successfully established in
    30 Plants
  • >150 Improvement projects completed
  • Benefits per annum exceeded 15million euros pa
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Novo Nordisk – Design and Launch of An Opex Improvement Programme

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Novo Nordisk – Design and Launch of An Opex Improvement Programme

Global insulin manufacturer looking for 30% reduction in cost and 25 % increase in output. Executive team convinced that solution was better capacity utilisation and not further capital investment.
Pharma-Opex-Improvement-Programme
  • Identify improvement opportunities
  • Design Opex Roadmap
  • Develop internal Opex and CI skills
  • High level value stream mapping (VSM) of supply chain processes – drove focus
    onto aseptic production, assembly, and packaging
  • Detailed VSM which identified over 100 improvement opportunities
  • Benefit/effort matrix used to focus on 5 critical issues
  • Opex Roadmap developed setting 2 year improvement agenda and Governance
  • Training Programme and Improvement projects Launched
  • Coaching of project leads to ensure benefits delivery and skills transferred
  • Significant production volume increase with no capital
  • Batch record right first time from 48% – 72% -reduced delays
  • OEE increase in bottleneck process(assembly) from 65% -72%
  • Simplified production planning and Kanban replenishment
  • Visual management and ‘lean daily management system’ introduced – rapid response
    to issues
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