Last Friday, Avery Dennison in Rodange hosted an eXchange²Innovate workshop. 11 decision-makers from the automotive, health, banking and consumer goods sector discussed the efforts and measurable results Avery Dennison presented.
Since 2005-2006 this company implemented Enterprise Lean Sigma in order to provide a frame work around strategy, to standardize business and operations processes and to structure the set of tools and behaviours that lead to success. After this shift to an intensive customer orientation Avery Dennison Luxembourg made every employee a part of the quality management system by engaging them in the improvement of the current quality controls at every step of the manufacturing process. The gains were significant.
“I found the presentation of innovations and the openness of this company absolutely convincing,” said one of the participants and added: “If I follow the content of the workshop, I will be more likely to achieve my goals and I will be more effective in my company.”
Serge Orban, Plant Manager of Avery Dennison Luxembourg explains: “One major improvement is that the production lines have ‘Quality Gates’ between each major process where workers check the quality of the work performed. What is unique and smart about the whole operation is that the quality checkers are production employees with lots of experience in the process they are checking. Our people take part in the problem solving process.” The workshop also included a session on Quality Gate Design Mixing, the creation of a new Quality Gate. Today, due to the concept of “Quality Gates Kaizen”, the Luxembourg plant is benchmark for Avery Dennison Europe.
This success is based on Six Sigma, a methodology for project management, and Lean Management, the never ending process of eliminating superfluous processes. The objective is to respond the expectations of the customers with first time quality. This includes 4 steps: First the specifications what customers express as critical to their business, second what operators need to do in terms of safety, quality, delivery and cost and third the criteria that tell if a product is acceptable or not. The fourth step is a consistent reaction plan to abnormality or non-conformance. The combination of these four steps enables a company to produce a perfect product the first time.
eXchange²Innovate is a programme of one-day workshops held in hosting companies. These best practice workshops have no thematic, company or industry limits, so they constitute an open and practice-oriented innovation and knowledge transfer between decision-makers about best practice innovations from the areas of strategies, processes and technologies. These practices are transferable between sectors and therefore significantly and sustainably accelerate the introduction and implementation of innovative ideas in companies.
Behind eXchange²Innovate stand 4 cooperation partners: BGL BNP Paribas, the Centre de Recherche Public Henri Tudor, Ernst & Young and ProCompany Eberwein & Partner. They are the initiators and long-term partners of this innovation project in the Greater Region. In addition, ProCompany Eberwein & Partner is in charge of the project management.
eXchange²Innovate is under the patronage of the Luxembourg Ministry of Economic Affairs, represented by the Minister Jeannot Krecké, as well as of the Luxembourg Ministry of Small and Medium-sized Businesses and Tourism, represented by the Minister Françoise Hetto-Gaasch.
Through the exchange of experiences about already-introduced and measurable innovations, entrepreneurs and decision-makers should be able to implement new improvements in their own companies faster and more efficiently. This exchange of experiences takes place in the form of interactive workshops and thus creates the basis for developing new networks and contacts.
The constantly changing offer of workshops has no company, thematic or industry limits, so that the spectrum of current themes takes the requirements of companies into account. For example, they range from logistics, supply chain management, continuous improvement processes in production, Six Sigma, energy efficiency, service and marketing optimisation to innovation strategies, knowledge management, protection of R+D and innovative human resource development models.
Next workshops :
15 November 2010
Optimisation de la gestion de la chaîne logistique pour PME
Sanichaufer, Dudelange (L)
23 November 2010
VIPS – das Vertriebsinformations- und Planungssystem
Fissler, Idar-Oberstein (D)
7 December 2010
Die Integration von sozialer Verantwortung des Unternehmens und Qualität der zu erbringenden Dienstleistungen als kritischer Erfolgsfaktor
Goblet Lavandier & Associés, Luxemburg (L)