Company profile:
- East Asian HQ to an international firm
- Revenues in 2009: > $300 million
- Three site operation with greater than 300 employees
Business Situation
Sales were growing significantly without the benefit of comprehensive operating policies and procedures. Inventory management, coordination with sales, use of vendors and operational effectiveness were inconsistent resulting in a significant cost of poor quality.
Raw and finished goods were kept at multiple locations including at the suppliers and vendors making tracking nearly impossible.
Solution
Objectives and policies for inventory management were implemented with no greater than 10% of components/sub-assemblies to be outsourced. Two value streams were identified and formalized using one-piece flow.
Leadership, supervisors and their teams were trained on Lean/Six Sigma with each continuous improvement event supporting the strategy. Finished goods were limited to quantities consistent with customer demand and kept onsite.
Benefits
The leadership team spoke of actions in terms of contributions to the overall strategy providing a clear and consistent message to the organization.
Productivity: 24%+
Inventory: Down $50M
Components/sub-assemblies brought in-house: Over 50%
