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“The money is spent, the new equipment is up and running, people have been trained and motivated; however, the needle is not moving quickly enough,” he said. “When the C-suite asks for an explanation, the reasons are often vague; finger pointing and excuses are sure to follow.”

In times of change, such as a significant capital investment or an acquisition, the sheer volume of activity can turn an otherwise stalwart team into a busy collection of individuals with their own agendas. “The key is being able to collectively step back and view the big picture as well as identify the specific root causes of employee and leadership frustrations. In other words, determining what is actually blocking the intended gains,” he said.

We should see the results.

Where are they?

Securing and spending capital to build capacity should be a positive experience, something worth celebrating. As Kevin Metcalf-Kelly, EVP of Consumer Products explains, “It’s exhilarating to meet increased customer demand or to open new markets; yet, so often throughput expectations are not met and delight turns to disappointment.”

Capacity increases are defining moments that can energize the workforce to be more creative, meet important deadlines and achieve groundbreaking milestones. Notwithstanding the excitement of growth and expansion, the entire process can be stressful. With this in mind, it is fairly common for the initial results to fall short of expectations — achieving small increases instead of the intended step change.

Consumer Products ManufacturingCapital improvements

Untold stories of building capacitySmall steps or full strides forward?

Kevin Metcalf-Kelly Executive Vice President

Consumer Products

www.alexanderproudfoot.com

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How far and how quickly are your current initiatives progressing?For more than 70 years, Alexander Proudfoot has worked side-by-side with client personnel and management at all levels to rapidly implement performance improvement programs aimed at revenue growth, expense reduction and asset productivity.

Fundamentals of increasing

throughput

Recently, one of our clients made a major investment to improve milk production capacity. They expanded their operations to produce more Extended Shelf Life (ESL) milk in order to capture a bigger share of a growing market and maintain healthy margins. “When capacity grew by only small increments, management hired us to accelerate throughput. There was an added sense of urgency because delays in achieving increased throughput meant lost revenue. No one likes leaving money on the table,” he said.

There were multiple moving parts to consider, such as how the client’s employees were adapting to the new processes and whether there were adequate systems in place to support new behaviors. For example, many supervisors had been promoted from within the organization based on their technical proficiency, but they had never received management training or on-the-job coaching. The supervisors were not as open minded as the newer, lower-level employees who were not so set in their ways. We had to retrain the supervisors into the new technical landscape, but more importantly help them develop skills to lead and manage through change.

When asked about increasing throughput for his clients, Kevin mentioned several keys to success. “Rethinking maintenance, applying short interval control, scrutinizing downtime and perfecting the art of shift planning help our clients achieve gains that meet their initial expectations,” he said. “When managed correctly, we have seen throughput gains of more than 25%, and 30% increases in overall equipment effectiveness.” He also mentioned that not executing targeted behaviors is another common root cause for failing to capitalize on greater productivity objectives. “If people don’t fully understand and embrace the new working environment, the results will be minimal at best,” he said.

Often the source of variances

runs deeply in the organization

Kevin Metcalf-Kelly is Executive Vice President of Consumer Products. He has more than 20 years’ experience as a Big Four client relationship leader, working with Fortune 500 clients.

He now serves as Alexander Proudfoot’s principal point of contact for senior executives with our CPG clients. Prior to joining the Proudfoot team, he served as President of the Dallas/Fort Worth Retail Executives Association and was a board member of the Association for Corporate Growth and the American Marketing Association.

Kevin has a successful track record of solving complex business problems, ranging from full-value merger integration to optimizing financial reporting and improving supply chains.

To contact Kevin: kmk@alexanderproudfoot.com