Improv­ing deliv­ery rates and reduc­ing break­downs by switch­ing to a new way of working

Back­ground

Defence man­u­fac­tur­ing can include every­thing from weapons and ammu­ni­tion to vehi­cles, air­craft, and com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tems. Com­pa­nies in this sec­tor require spe­cialised exper­tise and strict adher­ence to qual­i­ty con­trol and safe­ty stan­dards, as the prod­ucts pro­duced can have a sig­nif­i­cant impact on nation­al secu­ri­ty and the safe­ty of mil­i­tary per­son­nel. The indus­try is often heav­i­ly reg­u­lat­ed and sub­ject to gov­ern­ment oversight.

Our client is a fast-growing South Asian defence-themed sup­pli­er found­ed in 1963. Since its incep­tion, the client has evolved from a mod­est small-scale set­up to an inter­na­tion­al­ly acclaimed foundry and a fore­run­ner in absorb­ing and devel­op­ing new technologies.

Over the years, the client has grown to become a major sup­pli­er of cast­ings solu­tions, machined com­po­nents and fab­ri­cat­ed parts to many of the world’s most famous brands.

As a result of tremen­dous organ­ic growth over the past decade, the client realised the urgent need for bet­ter man­age­ment sys­tems to exer­cise tighter con­trol over the busi­ness. They need­ed a part­ner that could under­stand the intri­ca­cies of its oper­a­tions and imple­ment the most suit­able man­age­ment con­trol sys­tem (MCS) for the organisation.

Prac­tices were dif­fer­ent from site to site, and knowl­edge was con­fined to a select group of employ­ees with­in the organ­i­sa­tion. Account­abil­i­ties and respon­si­bil­i­ties were lim­it­ed and left out the most impor­tant lay­er, i.e. shop-floor supervisors.

Project Approach

We were select­ed for our expe­ri­ence in the region, as well as our deep under­stand­ing of the clien­t’s spe­cif­ic sec­tor. Based on dis­cus­sions with the client, we out­lined a 20-week engage­ment that would address key work areas in oper­a­tions, mate­r­i­al flow, pro­duc­tion plan­ning, main­te­nance, and quality.

We also designed and imple­ment­ed an MCS to instil reviews at dai­ly, week­ly and month­ly plan­ning hori­zons. Super­vi­sors were respon­si­ble for iden­ti­fy­ing per­for­mance short­falls and tak­ing con­tin­u­ous improve­ment mea­sures to dri­ve effi­cien­cy and effectiveness.

We began by set­ting up a task­force made up of client-side experts and form­ing two Man­age­ment Action Teams (MATs) to man­age the var­i­ous ini­tia­tives and ensure par­tic­i­pa­tion from all key process own­ers. Our con­sul­tants sup­port­ed both the task­force and MATs.

The results of var­i­ous stud­ies and test­ing meth­ods (DILOs, MCS cri­tique, as-is assess­ments, issue Trees, and more) gave us an idea of areas that need­ed improv­ing. The results also informed the devel­op­ment and ver­i­fi­ca­tion of a fit-for-purpose MCS. Mul­ti­ple design and devel­op­ment work­shops were car­ried out to fos­ter own­er­ship by the wider team.

Project Imple­men­ta­tion

A time-bound imple­men­ta­tion roadmap was approved to resolve any pre­vail­ing issues that might pop up in a sus­tain­able way while estab­lish­ing a long-term cul­ture of con­tin­u­ous improve­ment. MCS ele­ments were installed to improve pro­duc­tion per­for­mance through KPIs and per­for­mance reviews.

Mul­ti­ple train­ing ses­sions were pro­vid­ed to super­vi­sors and man­agers to enhance their lead­er­ship skills. We also improved the flow of infor­ma­tion so that there was time­ly res­o­lu­tion of issues relat­ing to shop-floor performance.

Oth­er solu­tions that were imple­ment­ed dur­ing this 20-week project include:

1. Set­ting up a cen­tral plan­ning process with melt­ing and pour­ing as the pace­mak­er that, in turn, would dri­ve down work-in-progress levels.
2. Imple­ment­ing a Lean man­u­fac­tur­ing approach.
3. Train­ing super­vi­sors in con­duct­ing analy­ses of fre­quent prob­lems through the ‘5 Whys’ method­ol­o­gy. Cor­rec­tive and pre­ven­tive actions were ver­i­fied by man­agers and pre­sent­ed to top management.
4. Iden­ti­fy­ing KPIs that can be used to cap­ture pro­duc­tion per­for­mance. Dash­boards and reports were cir­cu­lat­ed to man­agers to improve the decision-making process.
5. Imple­ment­ing dash­boards and KPI-based review method­olo­gies with time-bound action logs.
6. Cre­at­ing and train­ing a busi­ness excel­lence team to ensure sus­tain­abil­i­ty, by car­ry­ing out fur­ther improve­ments once our team had con­clud­ed the work.

“Renoir’s focused and com­mit­ted approach has led to a remark­able improve­ment in our oper­a­tions. They fol­lowed an extreme­ly method­i­cal and sys­tem­at­ic approach for iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of key areas for imple­men­ta­tion of new process­es and sys­tems.”
Chair­man & Man­ag­ing Director

Results