Case Study Kienle + Spiess: Return to world-class form with JIT.

Case Study Kienle + Spiess: Return to world-class form with JIT.

The company is a leading supplier of electrical generators and engines. BAVARIA Industries Group acquired the group with a turnover of around EUR 200 million from the Indian Tata Group in 2006.

Initial situation

The traditional manufacturer of stamped and die cast parts had made several substantial losses in a row in the five years prior to its takeover by BAVARIA. Costs, particularly indirect costs, were too high. High reject rates and a lack of delivery reliability had contributed to the high level of dissatisfaction among its key customers.

Key measures following the takeover

Together with the newly appointed management, BAVARIA’s management scrutinised all business processes and was rapidly able to sound out the following potential improvements: reducing administration costs, removing redundant plant structures and introducing the BAVARIA operating system to achieve a sustainable improvement in quality and delivery reliability.

Close cooperation with works councils and unions formed a key component of BAVARIA’s approach, which was aimed at implementing the necessary reduction in employee numbers as smoothly as possible and without any interruption to delivery capability.

Immediately after the takeover the company was able to work considerably more profitably again despite all the one-time costs for implementing the improvement measures. The newly created profit centres played a particularly important role in this process by ensuring a higher level of transparency and greater cost awareness at plant level.

Further development

By focusing on electromobility and introducing Gluelock, a revolutionary new stamping technology, the K+S Group was able to increase its profitability well into the double-digit range. Turnover subsequently rose significantly, despite the initial necessity of reducing the loss-makers in the production programme.

In 2013 we succeeded in selling the company, whose turnover had now grown to around EUR 230 million, to the Japanese Sumitomo Group, a strategic investor. This partner was selected because in our opinion it was better able to support the necessary expansion in the Asia region.