In the year of the 40^th anniversary of the founding of CGS, the management in their relentless drive towards excellence felt a new impetus was necessary to make CGS fit for the next 40 years. They wished to increase the company’s ability to serve customer needs as well as to maintain its position as the premium supplier in the market.

The challenges identified to achieving this were both internal and external to CGS. On the customer side, the customers were requiring ever more flexibility with ever more demanding delivery schedules while maintaining CGS’ quality standards. In the factory, there were space constraints. CGS management had recognized that the previous approach was not systematic enough and while staff were very motivated, a high amount of effort was needed to achieve the desired results and resolve day-to-day issues. They also recognized the need to empower staff so that continuous improvement or ‘Kaizen’ is enabled at CGS.

An external view, through Four Principles consultants, was brought in to challenge the team to help them challenge the status quo. Firstly, the team was taught Lean principles to help them understand their own situation and also the potential for improvement. The detail current state analysis was done together with CGS staff and the consultants to identify specific potentials and quantify them. The Lean principles (Pull, One-Piece-Flow, Takt and Zero Defects) were then applied by the team to design the solutions for the issues identified. The solutions were then piloted and refined together by staff and consultants on the shop floor. After refinement, the final solutions were implemented and the necessary standards defined to maintain the improvements.

Aside from the implementation of specific improvements, the enablement of staff to maintain the improvements and improve processes further themselves was a priority. The majority of CGS staff are both loyal and long-serving with 20 years or greater of service being the rule rather than the exception. Through learning about Lean from the consultants and then applying the theories and tools for themselves, the maximum learning was ensured. As part of this, the team then learned key Lean tools, such as Problem Definition and Root Cause Analysis. The team also learned to measure and analyze KPIs for themselves. Through this the knowledge and capability passed from the consultants to CGS staff. The mindset changed significantly and staff now empowered and further motivated to continue improvements.

Using Lean principles, the team of CGS staff and consultants designed and implemented an assembly flow line in the CGS plant in Riyadh. This resulted in a lead time reduction of 43% and therefore improved customer service, greater flexibility to meet customer delivery schedules, better ability to control production and ensure quality, reduced space requirements and an increase in efficiency of 13%.

Four Principles is a Lean / Operations Management consultancy based in the Middle East specializing in the region and the typical type of implementation problems encountered in the Middle East. Four Principles has a strong reputation built though having worked with large recognized brands in the region as has had considerable success improving processes for companies in the region assisting them in particular to implement improvements on the ground quickly. These improvements have covered processes in Development, Procurement, Manufacturing, Distribution Sales and Administration.