Initial situation

A medium-sized company in the premium segment of the sanitary industry had run into financial difficulties due to declining market shares and rising costs.

On the recommendation of the creditors, consulting companies were engaged to initiate restructuring measures.

The challenge

One of the first restructuring measures was to reduce personnel costs

This resulted in short-term financial success.

Unfortunately, market share continued to decline as premium products lost their appeal compared to cheaper competitor products.

Objective

Returning the company to profitability

Approach

I was hired as interim quality manager to reduce complaints and failure costs.

In order to increase the effectiveness of the restructuring measures, I was also given the task of harmonizing the activities of the various consulting projects and coordinating the reporting to the creditors.

Results

By

• adapting/reformulating product specifications together with key customers

• Training of employees

• adapting critical production parameters towards robust production (reducing susceptibility to minor parameter changes)

the failure costs were reduced by approx. 70% and the number of complaints by 50%.