Some examples of the sort of work we do for our clients.
We have conducted over 300 projects across the globe since the year 2000
Operational Strategy
The client was a £3bn corporation with multiple manufacturing sites distributed across the country, The company had grown rapidly through acquisition and now found itself with duplication of capacity, sites in need of investment and sites that needed to be closed. The project was set up to analyse the core process capabilities of each of the sites and their respective capacities and investment requirements. To marry this with the forecasted volumes that the business was targeting and pull together an investment plan that highlighted the urgent investment needs of the business and plotted a path of investment, divestment and the product and process moves required in order to achieve a consolidated operational footprint at a targeted volume and EBITDA. The project was The business successfully achieved its aims and implemented a six-year program to solidify its market position..
Business Turnaround
The client was a medium-sized manufacturing plant that had not made any profits for the last five years. Part of a larger group, the decision was finally made to close the site. Finidhyn were invited to take a last look at the operations to see if anything could be salvaged from the situation with two weeks before closure. We were able to establish within 24 hours that the site could be made profitable if its target operating model were to change slightly. We produced the necessary modelling within a week to prove the analysis in principle and persuade the major customers for the site that a solution was possible. Over the next 6 months, the business changed its operating model, released 30% more capacity in the site and brought in new business as a result, which transformed the site's future.
New Acquisition
The client was a recently acquired FMCG manufacturing site that was suddenly losing money. We were tasked with reducing costs within the business so that the business could have time to find new business to restore the company's profits. We undertook a full review of all aspects of the organisation and installed new management systems and planning systems to increase the efficiency of the operations. Through a mixture of restructuring activities, process improvements and changes to the business planning model the site was returned to profit.
Digital Disruption
The client was a major global corporation with a protected position in its marketplace due to its unique IP. Unfortunately, Japanese competition had created a competitor digital product that was now reducing the client's market share by 40% per annum, and the client needed to respond. We were asked to see if we could reduce the order to install time for the current business from 40 days to 15 in order to compete with the new threat. In the end, the only way we could achieve competitive parity was to design a new organisation and transfer it across to the new digital supply chain organisation.
Footprint Consolidation
The client needed to reduce capacity in its footprint and move over 250+ products from the closing sites into its remaining portfolio. This required receiving processes to be capable of accepting the increased volumes as well as capable of making the new products, and the new products moving to the new sites needed to be assessed to establish what their new gross margin contributions would be under the new structure. Added to all of this, there were technical and safety issues relating to the manufacture of the products in new sites, which needed to be assessed. We developed a global capacity plan and a costing mechanism for the project as well as a proposed transfer plan for the SKU's. We highlighted new CAPEX requirements, capacity bottlenecks, recipe changes required, and price increases where necessary and put together a full transition passport system for the business going forward to enable the restructuring.
New Target Operating Model
The client had a severe customer service problem and was not succeeding in solving the issue. We were asked to review the current planning systems and see if we could find a way to improve operational performance and fix the service issues. We assessed the existing business model and established that the current rules in the MRP system were at the root of the issues, as well as the existing planning rules. We developed a new planning model and changed the target operating model of the existing businesses in order to establish the correct stock levels and planning rules for the business. The end result was a return to world-class service levels and an overall efficiency improvement within the business.
Mediation Services
We were invited to try and resolve a situation between a client and its service provider. The issue was related to a large-scale project running years overdue and many millions over budget, and the client was considering litigation to try and resolve the issue. We were invited in as a last opportunity to resolve some of the issues between the parties and avoid litigation. We set up a mediation process for both parties. Through skilled mediation, we were able to facilitate healthy dialogue once more between the two parties and establish a mutual understanding of the issues driving the friction between them. As a result, a greater understanding of why the project was late and over budget was established, and both parties accepted their respective roles in driving the current situation. Through a dialogue process, both parties took the necessary steps to rebase the project timeline and put the project back on track.
Lean Manufacturing
Our client was a global company that needed to increase the profitability of a large European site or decide to close it. We were asked to see if we could increase the performance on-site by introducing Lean Manufacturing. The challenge with this industry was that Lean had never been translated into the industry sector, and therefore, there were no prior examples of how Lean could be applied. We analysed the business and established that, in principle, a number of tools would help the business: demand Smoothing, Level Scheduling, Cellular manufacturing and Activity-based costing. Over 12 months, we introduced all of these tools to the company and increased the site's profitability to the point where a competitor offered to buy the site. Also, the site became a worldwide reference point for the application of lean manufacturing within the sector.