Worldwide diesel engine, truck, vehicle manufacturer The UK based subsidiary of the German parent, they design, sell, produce and service large diesel engines. 80% of the margin is made from the service offering, hence enhancing that service offering represents a critical aspect of their prosperity.

Scope

Situation at start - Oct 2003
1400 people, £120M t/o across 3 locations losing money and market
share
3 separate management teams and separate organisations with all
their bespoke processes and routines
A management ‘team’ that was broken

Objectives of the work:

To create a coherent team with an aligned and agreed route forward
To unify 3 original organisations into one process driven company
To improve business performance and arrest the existing decline
To improve customer service
To reduce the cost of waste

Drivers for change

German concern that UK could never fulfil business expectations
Competition taking significant market share
Main competitors Caterpillar, MTU and GM
Need to restore confidence in people and market
New German CEO of UK business needed to deliver

Constraints

Time – not long to get it right
Warranty costs of engines built over previous decade

Approach / work programme

Overall Approach
Get the business to focus on

Overall Programme of work
Sort out senior management team – have VP’s who are committed to
the business and not to their personal agendas
Re organisation for the process not for the function
Commitment and strategy workshop for VP’s
Series of 5 similar workshops for next levels (60+ managers)
Then multi stranded implementation including:

Process reengineering for 6 mission critical company
processes
Creation, delivery and measurement of specific
departmental action plans for each senior manager (ie
60 action plans)
Each plan consisting of the following elements

 

Key actions to achieve the agreed
strategy
How to sustain employee involvement
Education and training
Ensuring effective business processes
KPI’s and measurement
Communications

Education and training

To deliver the message to all
employees MAN staff delivered an
education and training process to
everyone - all 1400, which covered the
strategy, departmental action plans
and specific improvement techniques.
This was delivered by in house
managers who had been trained in how
to train

Benefits

Ground swell of action at all levels
Clarity as to the process and process improvement
both departmental and X departmental
Improved business performance in terms of top line growth
Forecasted bottom line improvement from -£7M into 2003 to profit
in 2005 for one quarter and break even in 2006
Over 1000 improvement ideas inside first 4 months of action being
cascaded