The Situation: A specialty printer was competing in a market niche that had continued to grow. But sales were down and modest profits had given way to growing losses. Plant labor costs were extraordinarily high, rework was at record levels and delivery schedules were being extended further and further into the future.

Our Approach: Two three-day visits permitted us to interview virtually all the key employees. Part of our approach was to help them identify anything that stood in the way of them doing their jobs as quickly, as easily and as well as they should.

The answers pointed to a chaotic plant environment, where there was no time to do things right. Mistakes made jobs late, and there was no time for training or for the maintenance required for equipment to be productive.

Part of the problem lay with the company owner, who was always changing priorities and over-reacting to emergencies.

It was also clear that the plant manager wasn’t holding his department managers accountable for results, making excuses for them rather than setting performance standards and insisting progress was made in achieving those standards. He didn’t believe that real improvements could be made.

The Results: We helped the owner to calm down, and worked with him to build a performance plan with clear goals for improvement. He included his managers in the process, and promised to remove the obstacles to things going the way they should. He also made it clear he would hold them accountable for steadily improving results. The Plant Manager didn’t buy into the process and left. Things immediately improved, as managers began to see that improvements were possible.

Within 90 days, customers and salespeople had noticed the improved plant performance, and sales were up more than 10%. The effect on profits was almost incalculable.