Our Client’s customers include Ireland’s most famous whisky manufacturer and they represent a critical element in their supply chain. The spirits bottling business is high variety/small batch in nature. Low lead times and responsiveness are critical. New business was being declined due to packaging capacity bottlenecks having been reached. Lengthy product changeovers in particular were a problem. Tool-setters and fitters saw no personal wins in innovating ways to effect faster line reconfiguration.
Failure to raise productivity and responsiveness were beginning to pose a risk to key customer relationships and action was urgently required. Project management expertise was an essential prerequisite coupled with knowledge and understanding of Lean thinking and Change management.