Outcomes
The engagement delivered a profit turnaround of approximately €50 million over three years, transforming the site from persistent underperformer to one of the top performers within the group. Overall Equipment Effectiveness improved by 40% without any additional capital expenditure. Working capital was reduced by 25% on a sustained basis, even as demand increased. Line changeover times were cut from seven hours to three. The site was established as a group-wide exemplar of best operating practices, re-establishing its position as a market-leading producer.
The engagement was recognised as Best International Project by the UK Management Consultancies Association. The Divisional CEO said: “We wanted a step change in performance, done in a way that would build capability to make it sustainable. The results speak for themselves.”
Background
The scale of the challenge was matched by its complexity. Poor asset management and maintenance routines were causing significant unplanned downtime, while capital expenditure requests were being made without the performance data needed to justify or prioritise them. There was no effective performance management framework in place, resulting in low and inconsistent productivity across both plant and people. Planning processes were inefficient and uncoordinated, leaving working capital inflated and stock poorly controlled.
Beneath the operational issues lay a cultural challenge that had defeated every previous intervention: a workforce and management community that had learned to accept underperformance as the norm, and that had grown resistant to the kind of change the site urgently needed. Any solution would need to address both dimensions simultaneously.
Curzon Approach
Curzon began with a comprehensive baseline performance analysis to establish the true starting point and identify the improvement levers that would form the foundation of a credible business case. This diagnostic rigour was essential in an environment where previous attempts had failed partly because the problem had never been fully understood before solutions were imposed.
A joint team was created with the client from the outset, maximising knowledge transfer and building ownership of solutions among the people who would be responsible for sustaining them. Rather than managing the transformation from the outside, Curzon worked embedded within the operation, focusing on the critical few KPIs that would unlock the most significant performance and profitability gains.
OEE was identified as the primary lever. Lean performance tools including Short Interval Control and SMED were applied, with a deliberate focus on first-line leadership as the key to driving lasting behaviour change on the shop floor. Line changeover processes were systematically redesigned, cutting standard times from seven hours to three and releasing latent capacity without the need for additional capital investment.
Improvements were piloted first, demonstrating impact before committing to site-wide rollout, and a repeatable blueprint and playbook were developed to enable scaling both across the site and to other locations within the group. A capital programme review identified where expenditure could be deferred as efficiency gains met capacity needs, removing cost from the investment plan while the operation was still in recovery.
A varied and thorough communication programme ran throughout, engaging the whole workforce in the transformation rather than managing change from above. This investment in hearts and minds was not peripheral to the programme; it was what made the difference in an environment where resistance had previously proven insurmountable.
