Case Studies
Case Study #1
- Sector: Manufacturing
- Industry: Microelectronics
- Solution: Performance Improvement and Competitive Advantage
Client Business Challenges
- Production was bottlenecked in one department costing millions in lost revenue
- Client was rapidly losing key customers to competition
- Relations with customers were strained due to poor quality and long cycle times
- Employees were disgruntled
- Morale was low
- Employee turnover was very high
- Strained relations among several departments within the organization
Childress Consulting Solutions
- Performed "root cause analysis" of customer complaints
- Developed and implemented a departmental strategy to quickly focus improvement activities on key customers. Improving communication with customers was the top priority.
- Mapped client processes and developed "lean" procedures from first customer inquiry to delivery of service
- Created capacity for "quick turn" service which client sold at a premium price
- Developed procedures for quality control
- Led project team of management and employees to develop and implement an employee recognition and reward system
- Increased training and cross-training among the technical staff
- Made recommendations to improve design software and hardware
- Implemented "Performance Management Process" with each employee in the Division
Results
- Customer relations improved immediately due to improved communications
- Employee morale improved
- Cycle time was reduced from 63 days to 24 days
- "Quick turns" could be done in 8 days
- Department production capacity increased more than 100%