Radiall is a cable connector business with a £200 M turnover supplying to worldwide markets including telecommunications, automotive, military and industrial sectors, employing in excess of 3000 people. The markets and sectors they occupy are some of the most volatile, both to upturns in demand as well as downturns.

Cost of entry into the market is reasonably low, so they could be prone to attack from low cost competitors and off shoots of associated industries

Scope

Our customer has operations across the UK and Europe and satellite operations in China. The work covered all geographical locations and impacted on the day to day activities

Objectives Our remit was to deliver sustained improvement in profitable performance, differentiated service to consolidate market position and ensure the organisation is developed to meet the needs of a constantly changing environment.

Drivers for Change

The key is to beat the competition, retain market share in a cost competitive environment without reducing customer satisfaction

Approach

The programme called for comprehensive commitment to a set of agreed objectives and shared vision.

A series of workshops began solidifying these objectives, culminating in a wide series of actions and projects underpinned with a major culture shift within the management of the business.

Best described by the CEO Alastair Chatwin as, “moving the management mentality from being comfortable with a £30M turnover business to one with a mentality to achieve £150M+”

Throughout the change, lasting over 18 months, our focus was to enable the business to deliver the change themselves, rather than outsiders do it to them. The essence of the work was to engage the businesses in improving the business by focussing on the customer, preventing not detecting and reducing waste throughout all operations. Below are a selection of benefits the business gained from this approach, including specific project improvements as well as improving the business fundamentals

Benefits

UK Division
Company wide continuous improvement / culture change process
Systems (ERP) cut over – done in 4 months without loss of customer
service and realising major improvements in stocking policy and
material utilisation
Process reengineering – major front end and back office processes
redesigned to meet the needs of electronic ordering and faster
response and shorter lead times
Strategic sourcing – purchase decisions taken to reduce spend,
increase accountabilities to the supplier base and improved quality
and service to Radiall
Bonus schemes design and implementation – self funding, improved
quality and service to the customer
Delocation of operations to Tunisia and Shanghai – to reduce the
cost base on standard product

Operational performance included for the UK

Revenue increase from £22M to £45M in 18 months
Profit improvement of 17% over same time period
Waste reduction of £2M
Stock turns up from 4 to 8

Corporate

Creation and agreement to the business case for a European
customer service centre
Design of a change / transition plan for the service centre
Business case for the reengineering of the SCM process for all UK
and mainland European manufacturing routes

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