Luxury car manufacturer increases productivity and reduces overheads

21st July 2010

Like many manufacturing companies in the automotive sector, the company in question believed having in-house control provided them with the quality they required.

People employed by the luxury car manufacturer had the companies best interests at heart; they worked hard and to their best ability. However when management needed to reduce costs and step up productivity, it proved difficult to find the answer within the existing infrastructure.

A discreet audit revealed quick wins in production logistics
Rudolph and Hellmann were approached and were asked to undertake a discreet audit of the current processes and put forward a plan outlining where the company could achieve it's goals for growth and cost reduction. This included stock inventory management, operational performance, storage processes, and general housekeeping.

The benchmarking element revealed some surprising quick wins. By working alongside the existing team a number of frustrations were uncovered which were easy to fix without incurring any costs.

A consultant would have delivered a solution on paper; Rudolph and Hellmann believe you need to be hands on
Identifying quick fixes is one thing, implementing them in a way which avoids confrontation and destroying employee relationships built over years of careful negotiations, is another.

This is where Rudolph and Hellmann’s ‘Home Grown Timber’ employee development programme really pays dividends. Their empathy with their workforce and understanding of the commercial needs of a modern day car manufacturer are unique.

A seamless and hassle free transition; switching from fully employed solution to a fully outsourced one
Using their specialist transition ‘Central Operational Support Team’ (COST), they were able to manage a seamless and hassle free transition, switching from fully employed solution to a fully outsourced one. All this within 4 months too! Taking full operational responsibility for the areas which were identified within the audit, they were able to implement changes identified, namely, in operational processes, stock management and storage.

Within 12 months the return on investment was so significant, it couldn’t have been predicted
Once in control of the people, process and plant, COST were able to continually review and tweak key elements to improve the return on investment. Rudolph and Hellmann’s key strengths are ‘Micro KPI’s’ and ‘Automotive expertise’ (in fact Rudolph and Hellmann are the only 3pl specialising exclusively in production logistics in the automotive sector in the UK).

Pick rate doubled, stock integrity tripled, and shortage calls reduced by 75%
What’s more, this was achieved using many of the same people who were previously operating the production logistics. This is directly due to the core philosophy at Rudolph and Hellmann; everything matters, so everything is measured. This identifies where to focus on to get the biggest improvements which are delivered through reviewing the process, training the people responsible and keeping the decision structure as lean as possible.

Mark Cranidge, Rudolph and Hellmann Director directly responsible for this client, said “The fundamental improvements were delivered through core process development, placement of a specialist management team who were able to identify the stock integrity issues, remodel of goods inwards, which included time slotting of despatch vehicles and finally, identifying the Micro KPI’s and using SAP to manage this information”.

Put COST in to drive waste and inefficiency out
Critical to the success of this transition is COST because without their involvement it would have been impossible to implement the core process development changes required within the timeframe without impacting on productivity and production.

Because Rudolph and Hellmann specialise in on-site pre-production logistics only in the automotive industry, they have the best people to pull in to ‘over man’ during the transition phase. This means that production and productivity is never put in any danger whilst key people are taken out and retrained. They are then supervised, sometimes one-to-one, to make sure they are fully conversant with the new working processes. Once the operatives can evidence they have reached the desired level of productivity and application of the new processes embedded, COST slowly withdraw.

“It would be impossible to achieve the same results in this time frame without COST”.

Here’s how the 360 onsite logistics audit and assessment works!

Put us to the test, what have you got to lose?

Contact us for a FREE ‘on site' logistics audit – carried out under a non disclosure agreement - our findings will be reported in full confidence and will provide a detailed analysis of where savings and improvements can be made.

_{There’s only one condition - you must be UK based and be operating in the automotive sector, with a head count of around 25 - 30 or more operating in logistics roles.}