KLAUS BUCHWALD
ROHDE & SCHWARZ GMBH & CO . KG
KLAUS BUCHWALD
VP Corporate Supply Chain Management
On June 1st Chain at R for the
Aft i model of flexibility , agility and lead time , the company has been able to drive customer satisfaction and differentiation by a decisive competitive advantage through supply chain performance .
Markus Fischer , Director of Supply Chain Management at the company ’ s Memmingen plant explains the change process : “ We started with the vision for one day turnaround time production and supply chain with a clear belief to invest in flexibility instead of a forecast process and to reduce logistics costs and cost of sale to increase EBIT .”
To bring the vision into real life and into the heart of all employees working in production and supply chain , Rohde & Schwarz developed a production system based on the
LEAN philosophy with a three step approach . Having the end in mind “ The one day plant ” turnaround time was defined as the main driver .
In the first step “ transparent production system ” value streams were identified , lot sizes determined and the lead times stabilised . Based on that in the second step “ synchronised production system ” the value streams were connected with a KANBAN system and the turnaround times further minimised . This was the base for the third step “ learning organisation ” where throughput increased , lot sizes reduced and the ability to react boosted .
Buchwald explains how the changes were implemented across thousands of employees : “ We initiated Change Management
66 April 2016