Background

The company is an independent public company that carries more than 195 million train passengers every year. The Group has an annual turnover of approximately DKK 10 billion (€1.3 billion) and employs a staff of about 9,300.

The Technique and Maintenance (T&M) department has in recent years significantly improved, but increasing budget constraints make it necessary to move forward still further. The same constraints put pressure on the organisation to bring additional tasks in-house.

Years ago, the client started a LEAN process that brought many positive improvements. Now T&M wanted to boost this process, and Board decided to engage ManTec to manage and control the project.

Implementation

The client organisation was thoroughly analysed and potential improvement areas were found, including use of management systems, planning, and organisational structuring. The analysis also provided an overview of activities, staffing and non value-adding periods.

The client wanted to eliminate the long-standing culture where there was little or no logic concerning the distribution of tasks, and instead focus on customer needs and then organise its activities based on those needs. This required leadership behaviour to change, and first line managers needed to change from being very administrative to being operationally effective.

Each change was carried out with a high degree of employee involvement, which helped to give the entire organisation ownership of the implemented changes. In addition, employees were trained in Best Demonstrated Practices and 5S (an established Japanese manufacturing philosophy that focuses on effective work place organisation and standardised work procedures).

Results

The key results of following through the change programme were:

• several depots were closed as a number of simple tasks were consolidated;
• the organisation became more transparent, with better internal communication, and known target figures;
• the management team became more proactive, and began to develop and optimise their own areas;
• efficiency increased by about 40%; and
• customer experience and service quality improved by 5%.

Overall, the project ROI was 280%.

Background

The company is part of a worldwide group of over 100,000 employees working in logistics, energy and manufacturing. The company, which among many other things manufactures the world's largest container ships, has about 3,500 employees and a yearly turnover of over €600M.

For some years, despite its large internal projects, the company had profitability problems and it turned to ManTec for assistance.

Implementation

The pilot study revealed significant improvement potential in several areas, mainly in the production and supply chain management. A joint project, divided into five sub-projects, was undertaken with a target to achieve an annual improvement of about €60 million. The main project and the five sub-projects were all led by ManTec project managers. The sub-projects were manned by twelve ManTec consultants and eight internal team members on part-time during the twenty months it lasted.

In close cooperation with the client, this complex project engaged in several parallel sub-projects and activities:

• management team workshops;
• process mapping in the development, production, purchasing and logistics departments;
• training sessions with operators; and
• leadership training (through approximately 100 workshops at all levels).

The project also took over management of an earlier improvement programme that the client had launched.

To steer the project and drive improvements:

• effective project organisation and management with follow-up meetings was put in place;
• clear documentation was drawn up;
• clear monitoring and evaluation systems to track improvements and ensure implementation were put in place.

Continued involvement of the client was ensured through close dialogue with senior management and the CEO in weekly follow-up meetings, and monthly steering groups with management and labour unions. Internally, client project resources benefited from ManTec methodology. At the end of the project, client project members were gradually deployed to key units and departments, to maintain the impetus of the new ways of working.

Results

Benefits to the client of this complex project have been:

• the implementation of a strong and functioning management control system which includes “Goals-Roll-Down” and appropriate KPIs;
• new understanding and consensus on leadership and its practical applications;
• increased internal cooperation and flexibility internally, which also improved the customer–supplier relationship;
• reduced absence;
• clearly mapped processes within management, development, procurement, logistics, production and administration;
• establishment of a logistic function; and
• new organisation in the development department.

The implemented improvement activities exceeded the target of €60M in annual savings and represented a project ROI of about 900%

Background

The company, a major player in maintenance for railroad operators, has repair shops located throughout Sweden. After the purchase of a competitor, it merged operations and physically moved into the largest shop. It then contacted ManTec for help in increasing profitability and taking advantage of all possible synergies.

ManTec performed an initial analysis, which identified three key problem areas where improving performance would significantly impact the bottom line:

• cultural, organisational and managerial problems had arisen after the acquisition and merger of the companies;
• communication to the organisation regarding objectives and goals was poor;
• consistent cost control was lacking.

These shortcomings created an environment where subjective opinions, often groundless, governed over objective facts.

Implementation

With the assistance of ManTec, the company drew up a project designed to tackle the shortcomings in both the management process and the manufacturing and planning process.

Management process

A new management information system would not only give an overall view on the present situation and make cost and project control possible, but also reduce communication problems because the organisational structure of the company would become clearer. Key measures for this part of the project were:

• the structure of the organisation was made more distinct and clear. Responsibilities and authorities were revised in order to gain improved steering and control capabilities;
• Key Performance Indicators were identified to control critical cost drivers;
• enhanced system support was put in place, which made frequent follow-up and deviation control possible;
• special follow-up meetings were introduced between managers and staff on a daily basis, between managers and unit managers twice a week and between unit managers and the managing director once a week; and
• personal training and coaching of managers in their daily routines including follow up meetings was conducted.

The effect of these measures was to encourage a change in behavior, which had to be accomplished in order to focus on correcting deviances from plan.

The Manufacturing and Planning process

Since operators on the shop floor are the core of the company, a thorough analysis of the manufacturing and planning process was imperative if improvements were to be made. Key measures for this part of the project were:

• clarifying the output of requirement specifications;
• defining quantities needed based on planned production;
• establishing clear and distinct interfaces between areas and processes; and
• problem solving and taking advantage of improvements in planning and preparation areas.

Results

The main results of the project implementation were:

• a clear, distinct organisational structure with a logical chain of command was successfully created;
• a system of continuous and frequent follow up of operations was installed, making it possible to take timely corrective actions; and
• visions of routines, long and short- term goals were unified across the company.

The combined effect of these three improvements has been to increase productivity by 15%.