Plant manager of an industrial company

A manufacturing plant belonging to a multinational industrial company is experiencing productivity and efficiency problems in its production processes, and therefore, profitability, falling below desired standards.

The company manufactures a high-quality product and has a good reputation in the market. The company’s Spanish plant operates on a weekly shift system, 24/7, 365 days a year. The product requires a continuous manufacturing process because machine start-ups are slow and costly.

The lack of productivity and profitability has multiple causes. On the one hand, processes are not standardized. As a result, the workforce is not properly sized, there is a lack of 5S methodology, and there is insufficient digitalization to obtain real data, which impacts the lack of clear and reliable KPIs to measure results.

The company’s management decided to hire an interim manager with a very senior profile and experience in similar situations to resolve the plant’s weaknesses.

Through QMT An interim plant manager with extensive experience in industrial plant operations is being hired.

The interim manager, after an initial analysis, designs and implements a transformation plan that, In just 6 months, it achieves the following results:

• Processes are defined and implemented, as well as controls that ensure compliance.
• A standardized training plan is implemented for plant operators to ensure they learn to operate all production lines correctly. This eliminates the need for observation and imitation as the most common learning method.
• Thanks to the training of operators in various parts of the production process, it has been shown that a single person can manage different machines simultaneously. As a result, the number of production employees can be reduced significantly (approximately 28%). These employees, who were previously temporary workers and seasonal staff, represent savings per person per year totaling around €500,000.With this measure alone, the project’s profitability more than quadruples its cost.
• The plant is organized according to its workflows and cleaned. This reduces execution times and improves productivity.
• Scrap generation has been reduced by almost 40%, from 8% to 5.5%.%.This improvement has a positive impact on production costs.
• Additionally, a plan for the recovery and reuse of material is implemented in the production process.
• Better control over raw material stock. This prevents high fluctuations due to presumed material loss each month.
• The purchase of unnecessary auxiliary materials has also been halted. An automated system was discovered in the ERP system that was generating purchase orders that were not required. Staff were executing these orders without realizing that the warehouse was full of these materials.

After 6 months, significant achievements had been made, so the company’s management saw an opportunity to continue generating profits, and decided to continue with the interim manager.

In the opinion of the Group’s management,The decision to hire an interim manager has had many advantages including:

• We have been able to count on a very experienced and competent professional who has quickly brought order, method and system to the company.
• The fact that, in principle, the duration of the project was limited to 6 months, allowed me to focus on solving the plant’s problems.
• The experience and capabilities of the interim manager have increased productivity and reduced costs.
• Recurring savings have been achieved, which in the first year alone more than quadruple the investment made in interim management.