Strategic assessment of manufacturing facilities at five principal factories to enable rationalisation.

Detailed proposal for £8.5m annual cost savings on a 4.2 year payback. This has subsequently been implemented, on time, and within budget.

Integration of Finance, Operational Planning and part of Human Resources departments

Benefits of £0.7m ongoing labour efficiency were achieved where the staff forecasting and planning activities were critiqued by the operational planning function, this enabled effective and linked medium term staff planning. Improving linkage between Finance and Operational Planning enabled significant improvements in accuracy of financial forecasts, further enhancing local credibility with divisional management.

Design and Implementation of a structural blueprint for operational site management for large manufacturing units

This was driven by using process benchmarking coupled with total quality management techniques to provide a relevant base for the business and ensure understanding and buy-in from the management affected. The changes resulted in £0.8m annual cost saving with a 1.5 year payback and were implemented across all suitable sites.

Design and Implementation of SAP integrated procurement process for multi-site operation

This included three main head-office sites and over twenty smaller regional units. Full cycle implementation across 350 users and ten key roles. Monitoring and corrective actions through effective KPIs ensured changes were stable within three months. Established Expert Forum Approach to drive ongoing improvements, cultural change and issue resolution. Business benefits of £2.0m ongoing.

Design and Implementation of business planning processes covering commercial and supply chain, budgeting and profitability analysis

Achieved greater visibility of cross functional issues within the remit of the quarterly profit reviews, thus driving corrective action, resulting in ongoing benefits of £1.2m.

Stabilisation of core financial information during business recovery phase

Corrective actions to ensure clarity of performance information, from daily operations to budgets and forecasts and across product profitability and promotional activity.
Targeted development of finance team to ensure stable ongoing capabilities.