Success Story – Successful optimization of “interface-to-face” processes

International packaging and paper company

Client
A goodly 26,000 employees operating over 100 plants in more than 30 countries.

The assignment
Although conglomerate members, corporate history resulted in isolating one business branch’s production sites, meaning they more or less functioned as independent businesses.  This led to a loss of synergy and unnecessary repetition of development measures. The assignment was to define an organization structure that redirected the reigning mindset towards composite thinking, that optimized “interface-to face“ between production activities and central functions, creating a sense of solidarity. This should allow for and encourage standardized, bundled methods in research and development.  Previous restructuring efforts had been pushed through without integrating the workforce, and ultimately failed. 

Duration of project
10 days

Procedure

• One-on-one interviews with a representative group of 45 people from all relevant departments and coming from 5 locations
• Illustrations of the status quo, depicting weaknesses, strengths, opportunities and hands-on suggestions for change
• Generating solution approaches to various, aggregated workstreams in small groups
• Presenting results to executive management
• Conceiving a new organization structure with correlating roles and responsibilities based on the majority of employees‘ acceptance

Outcome
The company can now implement a new organization structure with it roles and responsibilities. Specific responsibilities at the junctures, including relevant information and communication tools, have been clearly defined, allowing “interface-to-face”. By applying synergy and sharing knowledge, market leadership is a given. 

In essence
All too often, structures evolving historically are underestimated. Their effectiveness and efficiency are rarely examined. Unforeseen dispersion of energies usually leads to a loss of productivity that can tip the scales against even the largest corporation.