Our experience in large scale, cost reduction programmes and lean philosophy deployment are core to Soapstone’s support in reducing overheads.
We focus on strategic board level support in deciding priorities for cost reduction and then provide operational project support to develop the skills within the operational teams.
Soapstone provides strategic planning and Lean implementation. Quality management tool an techniques can be delivered through workshops and on the shop floor to offer training and project support in developing tools for measurement and improvement of key value streams.
Read our Overhead Reduction Case Study
Soapstone undertook a brief review of current activities, systems and management tools to then develop a group wide programme of training and doing to map key value streams and identify wastes. All levels of staff were given support and training to understand tools and techniques to drive out the wastes and each value stream was addressed with learning then being spread across the group. Tools such as SMED, TAKT Time, EET and VSM became everyday tools rather than something in a book and a 30% volume increase was managed without any additional overhead cost. The programme achieved significant financial saving and enabled scarce resources to be better deployed. The programme also provided a group level standardisation of production to translate the efficiencies into many international operations.