What the plant should look like
in three to five years — drawn first

In many plants the "plan" is a rendering on the wall. It looks good, but nobody knows which step to take this year and which next year. This project did not produce a rendering. It gave the plant a navigation map: direction first, then route, then the stretch to walk this year.

The problem

• Three things missing. No connected set of KPIs, no value-stream maps and no implementable layout plan. With all three missing, nobody could say what to improve or in which direction.
• No shared vision. The operations team ran in silos: production looked at output, logistics at turnover, maintenance at downtime. Each was right on its own and they contradicted each other together.
• Expansion by judgement. Sales forecasts were on the table, but nobody translated them into which product family to expand, where, and how much floor space and equipment would be needed.
• No idea of the size of the prize. Everyone felt "it could be better", but not how much better, or whether it was worth investing.

Direction first, then route

True North answers the plainest question: why does this plant exist, and what should it become in three to five years. It is not written in numbers; it is written as direction.

Below True North sits the process vision — something that can be drawn and checked: which KPIs, how the value stream flows, how the layout sits. Only once those three are set does the master action plan follow: what this year, what next year.

What we did

• 1 · Set the KPIs. From the 2020 sales forecast we estimated the productivity measure and turned "how much better" into a number that can be tracked (2019 against 2020, month by month).
• 2 · Mapped the value streams. Selected three main product families and drew current-state and future-state maps for each, with material and information flow on the same line.
• 3 · Designed the layout. Against the 2020 output target, improved the line layout and fixed how much floor space was needed, how equipment should be placed and how material would move.

Results

One thing this page has to say clearly

+64.0% is a theoretical potential, not a result achieved. It means that, on the 2020 sales forecast and the re-laid-out line design, moving the productivity measure from 50 to 82 can be calculated. Whether it is actually reached depends on execution.

Why spell out the difference: the most common way a lean project goes wrong is presenting a calculated potential as a delivered result. A potential is a promise; a result is a fact. They are not the same thing.

Who this is for

• Industrial equipment and equipment manufacturers building a new plant, moving or expanding, where a layout decision costs tens of millions and cannot be made by judgement.
• Companies with plenty of KPIs, each owned by a different function and contradicting one another.
• Teams that need a shared direction, not only this year's output target.
• Not for: those who only want to fix the efficiency of one operation and do not intend to touch the layout.