Improving Reliability and Unlocking Capacity at a Major Lubricants Manufacturing Facility
Context and Challenge
The lubricants division of a major oil and gas company was presented with the combined challenge of significant volume growth coupled with increased complexity.
Volume was projected to grow dramatically during the first year and continue growing at a rapid rate over the next three years. In addition, customers were demanding more options, greater ordering flexibility, and reduced lead time.
To absorb this volume successfully, their largest facility would need to improve its reliability significantly. The facility’s on-time, In-full (OTIF) performance had been below expectations which caused conflict with the sales organization.
In order to meet this challenge, the leadership team needed better visibility and management of their key performance indicators, to operate as an integrated leadership team, and improve their leadership skills and capabilities.
Approach
Conducted a capacity-focused Foundation phase designed to understand the future demand profile and assess the plant’s capacity to meet the anticipated demand, followed by a result-focused Delivery phase aimed at building sustainable, reliable capacity growth.
Achieved improved reliability and flexibility which required a comprehensive operational improvement program focused on integrated scheduling, production reliability, packaging reliability, warehouse optimization, carrier performance, and leadership and performance management.
Created improved visibility to the facility’s performance ensuring the right actions were taken at the right time to drive improvement. A comprehensive, “single source of truth” operating report was implemented as a critical component of this process.
Formed strong coaching relationships with leaders to support the development of new behaviors, processes, and capabilities to transition from a siloed management approach to operating as an integrated leadership team focused on end-to-end delivery of results.
“Evolve’s coaching has helped my people to address real business issues in a way that has added value while building their capability and confidence. I appreciate Evolve’s ability to coach me and my senior team as well as employees at the shop-floor level—and link those interventions to drive business improvement.”