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Securing the future through sustainable improved performance
As the only local supplier of cement, this cement manufacturer had enjoyed a strong market position. However, as the local economy grew, this position was increasingly threatened by foreign imports being dumped in the marketplace. The government was amenable to the idea of imposing anti-dumping legislation, but only if the company could demonstrate that it would be able to meet the countries growing need for cement at competitive prices. Evolve was asked to help the company make a breakthrough in its ability to produce sustainably at a higher level of production and at lower unit costs.
Evolve worked with the company over 12 months to design and implement a transformation programme that would increase productivity, improve operating efficiency, and critically, increase the capability of the business to lead and manage itself so that higher levels of performance could be sustained. To make the changes happen, Evolve trained and developed and eight-person full-time programme task force, so that they could engage the business in analysing the issues the business faced, and to implement the new processes and systems that would deliver the required result. In addition Evolve, trained the business's leaders and middle managers in new leadership and change leadership tools and models, that enabled them to start to lead the programme, and left them in position to lead the ongoing improvement in the future.
By the end of the programme, the business was producing month-on-month at new record levels, with output up by more than 12% and unit costs down 8 % on the previous year (which itself had been the best year in the company's long history). This breakthrough in business performance has enabled three things to happen.
Firstly market share has increased by 15% due to increased customer confidence in the its ability to deliver good quality product on-time. Secondly the government, seeing the improvement, has agreed to protect it against cheap imports. This fact and growing confidence in the business to genuinely operate at world-class levels of performance, enabled the business to attract new investment to embark on a major capital programme to further increase output and to maximise the opportunity afforded by the growing local economy.
Confident that it has permanently increased its capability to improve performance, the company has set itself still more record-breaking targets and budgets for the next year - a further 10% increase of output and 9% unit cost reduction. It is ahead of these targets and confident it will have another record breaking year.
