Good morning everybody. Another great and hopefully successful week has just started for all of us. For my today`s post I have selected a subject, which truly spoken had a very strong and positive impact on our factory, company and business as a whole since we started with it. Let me me share with You, how this came and how it developped.
When I took over responsability as President of Vulkan do Brasil on September 17, 2014, I spent the first days mainly with the managers there in order to become acquainted with them and to learn about them and their roles and experiences. And for sure – I spent also lots of hours on the shopfloor areas of our factory trying to get a first impression of our operational performance.
Actually at this time – and from then on for the next three months until the end of 2014 – as per agreement with my employer GEA Heat Exchangers (today: Kelvion), for whom I still continued – only half-day from then on – as Managing Director of their Brazilian company and factory in Franco da Rocha, Sao Paulo, I just was employed on half-day basis as Interim Manager by Vulkan. This was the elegant agreement, which I could negociate with my both employers and to which both excellent companies agreed. Thus I could help GEA Heat Exchangers to win time for hiring my successor for their Brazilian company and I could get started immediately, to help Vulkan get things under control at their factory in Itatiba.
After the first week at Vulkan do Brasil`s factory I had already gained a quite complete picture of the situation of this company and I concluded that there should no time unnecessarily be wasted to initiate the urgently needed complete restructuring process. It was very clear for me, that we needed to rearrange completely the whole company and that we needed urgently to clean up and improve all operations and indirect operations support areas, means manufacturing, planning, purchasing, Quality Control and all others because of the really very critical state and situation of the factory at that time,
It became immediately clear for me, that we would not be able to do this alone and that I needed to bring in quickly highly qualified, experienced and trustful external support. A doctor was needed ! And I quickly got an idea.
Because of my longtime activities and active participation in events of the German-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (AHK) Sao Paulo (https://www.ahkbrasilien.com.br/), I already had an extensive network of excellent contacts and experienced friends familiar with all types of professional subjects and know how. That`s clearly the advantage of continuously doing networking and partnering. But it is important for me to say, that this only works, if You contribute freely and share Your own experiences openly and actively with the others.
“One way streets” don`t work in this sence. You need at first to offer support and help to others, so that You can ask them for support and receive help from them later-on, when You need it by Yourself. Egoists who just want to gain cheap access to other people`s fund of experiences and know how, are quite quickly beeing identified as unwanted and excluded from such fair and open information sharing and colaboration networks. Hard lessons sometimes for certain kinds of people…
I decided, to call Dr. Hans-Jürgen Klose, whom I knew from his KPMG times in Sao Paulo and who had just shortly before joined Staufen-Taktica (https://www.staufen-taktica.com.br/pt/), the Brazilian Staufen subsidiary, as lean management expert and consultant. And I was already aware, that Staufen was one of the German, globally acting, technical consultancy firms with the highest prestige and experience.
Hans and I met on a sunny saturday afternoon on the deck terrace of one of the beer bars in the “Beco Fino” bar & restaurants area in Jundiaí, where I was still living at that time. I explained Hans the background of my new job at Vulkan do Brasil and I described my interpretation of the critical situation of our factory to him. For me it was evident, that we urgently needed to apply lean systematics and to start immediately the reconstruction of our whole factory.
The discussion with Hans, who from that time on became one of my closest friends, made us draft jointly on some pieces of paper, which the bar servant brought us to our table, a pilot project for our Lokring production area, which had just shortly before been transferred from our former factory in Barueri, Sao Paulo, to Itatiba, Sao Paulo, but which was not at all integrated and optimised yet. On the monday after our meeting in Jundiai Hans sent me his detailed offer and proposal and we immediately came over contractually and started the active realisation of our first lean project at Vulkan do Brasil. This was at the end of september 2014, less than two weeks after I had arrived at Itatiba.
It is not an exageration if I tell You, that this became one of the most exciting and successful projects which my team colleagues and I worked upon during the following weeks and months in close cooperation with Hans and his wonderful and highly experienced Staufen-Taktica team members. This project created an enormous dynamic and involved more and more of our employees in all departments and on all leadership levels.
During future posts I will give You detailed insights, about what and how we did and also about what we achieved altogether. What I can tell You already is, that we turned each stone of our factory, not a single machine continued where it had been installed before and all our work routines and processes were critically reflected and improved. The lean transformation of our whole company took us an uninterrupted period of almost two years and delivered wonderful results. But I will tell You about all this in my future posts.
Hans left Staufen-Taktica later-on, moved to Germany together with his lovelly familly, opened his own consultancy firm (https://www.innoand.de/de/start/) and attends his customers there but he also continues with several international projects. We did not loose our contact nor our great friendship over these years and whenever I need experienced qualified hints about certain technical subjects, I call Hans and we discuss these. This reflects also a lot of my intensive experience with regards to the involvement of consultants and the colaboration with them. It does not make any sence for You, to look for a “Messias”, who answers all Your questions and solves all Your problems. People who sell such “consultancy” just cost You money and don`t really help You further. Really good consultants – besides the large experience and great know how, which they undoubtedly need to have – work actively together with You and make You reach Your targets with their help, but by Yourself.
Thank You very much for Your today`s attention during reading this post. Wish You a highly successful day and hope to see You again here in my blog tomorrow.
