Building Products Company

Expertise

Performance Improvement

Assignment

A large privately held company in the building products industry had witnessed deteriorating performance in a subsidiary organization. The parent company asked MainStream to analyze the issue, determine root cause problems and provide recommendations to three questions without disrupting their current production.

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• Why was output so low;

• Why were costs so high;

• Why were deliveries not being met.

Actions

MainStream frequently operates in the somewhat precarious situation of being sent by an equity partner or corporate office to fix challenges in an unwilling subsidiary company. Almost always their initial impression is that they neither need nor want any meddling or help by outsiders. As such, our process begins by establishing a positive and value added relationship with management, especially the site leader, and focusing on identifying problems with their operating processes. In this case, our mutual conclusions determined that significant savings in inventory and labor could be realized through the elimination of many of their outdated manufacturing processes and beliefs. MainStream worked to build a program with the site leader that began first with the formation of a steering team and then an implementation team.

Results

The Company successfully launched its first initiative within 6 weeks resulting in an annual saving of 31% in labor, a one time savings of $500,000 in inventory, and a reduction in lead time from two weeks to three days. These results came from a process that was identified, developed and implemented with management's support and approval, by the very people who a few short months prior preferred to operate in a business as usual environment.