The Company is part of a leading international Group in the field of automotive thermal systems. It has a total of more than 2,500 employees and sales of about 670 million euros as of March 31, 2019.
It is present throughout the country with four locations. The Headquarters, which also houses an important production site, is in Piedmont. The production structure in Italy is completed by two plants, one in Campania and one in Lazio, and two aftermarket business units dedicated to the distribution of components on the market.The company also has its own production units in Portugal, Spain, Poland, Argentina, Brazil, India and Tangier.
It is an ever-expanding business that invests heavily in continuous innovation and constant attention to quality.
Foreword
The need expressed by the company concerns one of its production sites, a business with more than 900 employees that manufactures air conditioners, engine cooling modules and heat exchangers with state-of-the-art technology.
The plant has recently changed its organizational structure, and the actions that Headquarters intends to take are aimed at supporting the expression of the Plant’s performance potential, previously recognized as distinctive within the Group. Specifically, it is intended to engage the facility in a field improvement intervention, geared toward achieving specific targets for budget, operating profit, labor efficiency, and scrap quantity level within a set time frame.
Project
In light of the expressed need and a thorough analysis of the context, PRAXI proposes an Action Learning course, aimed at achieving concrete improvement quickly through activating the accountability of Plant people.
Specifically, the proposed training-action methodology aims to actively involve all employees in the identification, analysis and implementation of ideas, proposals and solutions to problems, promoting the development of certain key behavioral skills such as proactivity, overview, problem solving, creativity, teamwork, communication, sense of belonging and motivation. One of the strengths of this training approach, by giving a central role to people, is to act both top-down and bottom-up.
The path is divided into four phases.
After an initial meeting with the Plant Director to explain the project and share the guidelines (Phase 1), and with the Management Team (Phase 2) to define the objectives and the key points determining how to achieve them, a communication process is activated to involve all people in the path (Phase 3).
Three cross-functional action groups are then activated, one for each production unit (Phase 4), with the aim of implementing interventions in the field. Each group can refer to a PRAXI facilitator, who ensures the effectiveness of teamwork and adherence to the corporate mandate, and an internal mentor, who is an operational point of reference.
In order for the perception of change to be effective and reverberate positively on people’s motivation and productivity, special attention is paid to internal communication through timely and constant updating of all employees on current activities.
Using the action learning training methodology, which works on real and therefore measurable problems, it is possible to evaluate the results achieved and the KPIs attained in light of the mandate initially given by the Company. These are presented to the Board in a participatory Final Celebration meeting.
Results
The actions implemented by the project, which, by acting on real critical issues, made it possible to monitor and measure the outputs, fully met the quantitative and qualitative objectives defined and shared at the beginning of the course.
At the quantitative level, the level of labor efficiency–and thus productivity–has increased, along with a significant reduction in production waste, partly due to the introduction of effective execution methodologies (action plan and recovery plan) to prevent emergencies and anticipate the estimation of possible losses and revenues.
At the qualitative level, the training intervention has introduced several improvements.
First and foremost, the impact is tangible with respect to the individual’s sense of responsibility for the system and the end result. Among other main results, the project has strengthened the value of corporate culture in the plant, promoting the sharing of goals and the importance of an overall and long-term vision common to all professional figures.
It also promoted the value of mutual acquaintance and collaboration, a significant motivational lever that in turn stimulated proactivity and initiative with respect to managing difficulties and proposing solutions deemed useful in bringing a concrete contribution to improving organizational efficiency.
Finally, the training improved the Plant’s dialogue with Headquarters.
Future
The next steps, identified in the final stage of training activities, are prioritized according to the level of importance and urgency.
Priority interventions are internal monitoring of best practices and follow-up of groups for 6 months.
Of equal importance-but to be planned with less urgency-is the activation of new action groups (including through the identification of internal facilitators), to consolidate in the plant the culture of working by objectives and accountability.
Beyond all expectations and predictions, the outcomes produced triggered a timely interest in implementing the same intervention in the Company’s other locations.
Then, a month later, a new project with the same approach destined for Headquarters started.
