A lean strategy for continuing success - Kingspan case study

Introduction
Kingspan's target market is the quick‑build construction sector, and their main proposition the rapid infill of industrial or commercial shells with their pre-constructed metal sections and panels (produced in a wide range of types and finishes). In an expanding market, Kingspan planned to grow both organically and through acquisition. But they were not alone in seeing the opportunity. The marketplace attracted many new competitors – competitors who not only undercut the long‑established Kingspan, but were often able to deliver quicker as well.

Key challenges
How could newcomers be so immediately competitive? Ireland‑based Kingspan had several efficient, highly‑integrated, flow‑line operations. Starting at one end with a roll of sheet metal, they could turn out shaped, welded, fully treated and finished panels ready for delivery and assembly within a building shell – often by Kingspan operatives. But the long lines were difficult and time‑consuming to change. Concentration on 'sweating the machines' had removed all excess capacity. Relatively high costs, slow delivery, order inaccuracy and inflexibility all added up to poor responsiveness to the customer. The company found itself at a disadvantage against the aggressive new competition.

By contrast, the new entrants had mostly set up in places where labour was plentiful and cheap. With new, large facilities that were cheap to run and had yet to be fixed in terms of layout and operation, competitors had plenty of easily‑deployed, flexible and unconstrained capacity. Different activities took place in separate areas. Delays, changes or bottlenecks were dealt with ad hoc – by throwing more labour at the problem.

True, this is not a recipe for permanent success. But Kingspan had to meet customer expectations consistently – no more late or long delivery, for instance – to sustain their leading position. No use knowing where your rivals are going wrong if you're out of business and they aren't.

So the big challenge was to make sure both the core company and the new acquisitions were lean and agile – and would remain so –in their manufacturing, their general way of working and how they related to their market. They needed to be meeting customer requirements at least 99% of the time.

Solutions: A Lean strategy for continuing success
Overall strategy WCI began by helping Kingspan develop a broad strategy for consolidation and growth to secure and enhance their position in response to the new pressures. From there, we switched attention to the Men Who Knew.

Strategy often begins in the stratosphere, involves a lot of blue sky thinking, and flounders when the attempt is made to transmit it down through the organisation to earth. Our approach reversed this model. The company's divisions knew their customers, a great well of knowledge and insight that needed to be tapped. Working division by division, we helped people to understand the operation's strengths and weaknesses, bringing out real customer needs, matching them with real strengths, and spotting the gaps. Then we looked at how to address those gaps, in the light of lean principles. With that under way, we fitted the bones of the ideas together in the shape of the company's very broad overall plan. Not too much blue sky, very pragmatic – making the most of what the people on the ground knew. The strategy and planning stage took three months.

The pilot – key improvement actions
To succeed, the strategy had to be grounded in a reality everyone recognised and accepted. So we identified and carried out a real, essential, practical improvement project in a recent acquisition. This pilot project would develop leaning‑up competence and produce a generic model for change that could be applied throughout Kingspan.

Key improvement actions were chosen to give high returns quickly with limited input, and to demonstrate the strength of lean principles:

  • Install a Total Production Maintenance programme
  • Improve Supply Chain flexibility Re-layout production areas into cells
  • Adopt both Push and Pull control techniques as necessary
  • Install a visual scheduling process
  • Re-engineer contract management, installing a structured electronic workbook and workflow automation, controlling process flow using pre-defined gates.

BENEFITS: The pilot results
The achievements of these key improvement actions were:

  • Change over times reduced
  • Overtime reduced Stock Reduced
  • Service targets met
  • Profits increased
  • Day‑to‑day control given to shop floor – productivity and quality up, support costs and errors down pilot project took six months to complete.

Lean rules...
On‑site crew time is expensive – whether the customer's or Kingspan's own. Re‑engineering the lines almost doubled capacity – a huge leap at little cost. The new flexibility immediately produced shorter, accurate delivery times... and happy customers. And the company can re‑visit the product range twice as often: a better product range and better customer service. Kingspan now produce for orders rather than for contingency.

Starting with the high‑volume manufacturing lines, the lean approach has spread throughout the company's support functions, and out into the low‑volume, on‑site areas too. So successful is it there, that Kingspan's customers, like many constructors today, are beginning to ask how to adapt it to their own needs.

When they start to emulate you, then you you've got it right.