The author and managing director of egeplast international GmbH is Dipl.-Ing. Ratzmann. This article recently appeared in our egeNews.
Getting Better Every Day – with Lean Management
In order to offer our customers sustainably improved services while ensuring responsible use of all resources, egeplast has introduced the new ImPROVe program (Improvement of Processes, Resource and Organisation for Value at egeplast). Occupational safety, employee focus, quality, productivity, environment + energy, and technology are the core areas of this holistic value creation system.
With specially trained employees from all areas of the company, we are setting out to optimize processes throughout the entire organization. Since this is a continuous movement without a specific end, we do not refer to it as a project, but as a program. The tasks ahead of us are diverse. This applies to both administrative areas and production and production-related areas; all with the goal of higher customer and employee satisfaction.
For Higher Customer Satisfaction
Among other things, production processes are to be optimized, such as faster changeover times, in order to create improved flexibility for customer requirements without reducing the well-known egeplast quality. At the same time, we want to drive forward the modernization of production with modern technological approaches. More digitalization and structuring of processes supports employees in their daily work. Requirements from product developments will naturally find their place in this program, as will specific requests from employees and our entire environment. The goal is defined, and with various methods from the lean management system, we will tackle the challenges step by step. Qualified colleagues are the foundation for this program. With the first training of Lean Advisors (see photo), we have created the basis, and further training will follow to awaken understanding of the continuous improvement process among all employees. Implementing the path we have embarked on together into our daily work will be the task of the coming months. Getting better every day is the fundamental principle.
