How to urgently restore capacity and ensure it lasts

Client context

With its production of electric motors for the automotive industry booming, the internal logistics of supplying the production lines could not keep up and caused production stoppages. Meeting production targets and increasing productivity were essential to quickly restore the plant's profitability.

Support put into place

Initial work began immediately to urgently restore capacity on four lines. A new process involving small trains running regular “metro” routes was put in place. This change, implemented extremely quickly with the external service provider responsible for internal logistics, enabled the majority of production stoppages to be eliminated within two months.

We then worked over a longer period of time to improve productivity in depth, eliminating even minor malfunctions, which, when combined, represented considerable time losses at the factory. The strong involvement of the external service provider and the client's teams made it possible to identify relevant solutions that eliminated irritants quickly and sustainably, and the teams took ownership of the new processes thanks to their involvement from the start of the project.

A steering process was put in place to share and correct line variations and prevent more than 99.5% of stoppages, achieving a minute-by-minute response to all component availability issues. Steering involves a stronger link between the customer's teams and its logistics provider, with predefined actions for recurring issues and the parallel implementation of a rapid escalation process.

Results

• OTD: 99.96% up from 97%
• Number and duration of line stoppages reduced by 2/3
• Productivity: +85%, doubling volume with the same workforce
• Capacity x 2.5