Improvement Case Studies

4.1

2022

2022

New Product Development (NPD)

Industrial Cooling Systems

Denmark, China, France

Improve delivery of the business case targets for future NPD projects

Based on the extensive diagnostics work the following key improvement themes were identified: product specification development and validation with the customer, customer involvement strategy, project governance discipline, application of agile project delivery model, cross-functional team decision making. The three consecutive Kaizen events were designed and conducted, as the result of which the improvement actions in each of the domains were derived. The client decided to implement these on its own and monitor the sales “hit rate” (ration between the actual and predicted sales).

4.2

2017

2020

Cost Down – Product & Tooling

Various Industrial Sectors

Europe

Implementation of “Robust design” method as a cost down lever

The client team produced a prioritized list of product families that became pilot candidates. Valcon technical experts applied “robust design” to each pilot product family and suggested a recommendation for how the product robustness could be improved. Consequently, reduction of the product driven supply chain costs (20%) and the product development time (15%) were also fulfilled.

4.3

2017

2018

Cost down - Logistics

Agriculture

Holland

Fresh produce supply chain (cost) efficiency improvement study

Strategy for reducing the supply chain costs was based on introduction of returnable plastic packaging into operations. The hypothesis was confirmed as the future state supply chain model delivered 30% supply chain cost savings to suppliers, and excellent return on investment for the client (2-year payback period). Client decided to start implementation of the returnable packaging concept into his operations and should have realised assumed savings in year one since implementation.

4.4

2014

2016

New Product Development (NPD)

Industrial Cooling Systems

Denmark / Europe

Success Rate KPI proactive deployment in NPD projects

I continued following up on progress of agreed actions arising from the management workshops and helped them measure the impact. On average the Success Rate, measured on an NPD project portfolio level, went up from 50% to 65%, 12 months after completion of the workshops.

4.5

2014

2015

New Product Development (NPD)

Industrial Heating Systems

Slovenia

How to improve delivery of committed sales volumes in new product launches

I facilitated a workshop where the senior management team gathered and analysed the root cases, discussed the scope of solutions and prioritized actions for which they believed would improve the delivery of the business case volumes (target volumes). As the result of this project, 12 months later the average sales volume delivery has improved from 50% to 75% as a percentage of the volume estimate in the business case.

4.6

2014

2016

Cost down - NPD

Industrial Heating Systems

Europe

Implementation of the cost target setting process in NPD projects

Several projects were chosen to monitor the application of the cost target setting process. The early cost target was compared to the actual cost of the product at the product launch and the target realisation has improved on average from 125% to 110%, meaning that the actual cost of the product at launch used to be 25% over the target and it went down to 10% over after application of this process, which was a 15% improvement.

4.7

2011

2016

Professional Education

Various Industrial Sectors

Europe

Business System Academy Trainer and project Auditor – Leadership in NPD

I run 15 training sessions over 3 years and trained around 200+ staff and suppliers. In addition to the training, I developed an audit tool that was used on all running NPD projects. As a result of the combined effort (training and auditing), an average audit score went from 55% to 66% over the course of 2 years. Also, an average NPD project duration was reduced from 18 to 14 months.

4.8

2003

2004

Cost Down – Supply Chain

Powertrain Division

UK / Europe

Cost reduction leader and suppliers’ ideas implementor – Powertrain Division

Visteon set the target in 2003 to reduce its overall material cost by 6%. This was meant to be achieved through waste elimination engineered through Visteon own ideas, joint ideas with suppliers and suppliers’ ideas. All ideas were put through $AV€ program and I coordinated all ideas’ progress through series of minimilestones where the feasibility were assessed by the cross-functional cost leadership team. The ideas which achieved full feasibility of 100%, were implemented in relevant Visteon factories. During the 3-year period 2002-2004, $AV€ program managed to achieve price reduction for purchased materials up to 18%.

4.9

2002

2003

Cost Down – Product & Tooling

Car Powertrain System

UK / Europe

Development and validation of the cost reduced engine fuel system

Visteon started serial production of this plastic fuel rail in 2004. It saved 50% of the total cost for the fuel rail ($8 down to $4 per piece) and the fuel rail retained its structural integrity and met Ford stringent technical and commercial requirements.