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Learning new practices to boost competitiveness

Efficiency and productivity are key goals for most businesses, and peat harvesting company Klasmann-Deilmann Ireland is no exception. The company is part of a 100 year old international group based in Germany supplying organic substrates and peat products to the horticulture and food industries.

Klasmann-Deilmann Ireland focuses almost entirely on peat production with 95% of its products exported. Given that the harvesting of peat is a seasonal (summer) business, productivity is essential to maximise the potential of a short season.

Looking to shift its thinking from a reactive to a proactive approach to planning and problem-solving, the company decided to visit other businesses in other sectors to learn from their experience. They came across Enterprise Ireland’s suite of training programmes and took part in three projects: Lean Start, Plus and Transform.

What is Lean?

To succeed in international markets, Irish client companies must be competitive. Enterprise Ireland works closely with client companies to assist in adopting lean practices and world class manufacturing standards which is essential to their ability to compete internationally. A range of supports are available, including a Company Competitiveness Health Check, which involves Enterprise Ireland staff working with companies to benchmark them against a database of European companies and to the Lean Transform offer which provides financial support towards a large scale, extensive and holistic company transformation programme.

So what results has Klasmann-Deilmann Ireland seen since Enterprise Ireland's Lean projects?

50% increase in productivity

The company has since improved its productivity during the harvest season by just over 50%. This means it is able to harvest and sell 50% more product per year for the same inputs.

In addition, the administrative processing of sales information has been decreased from 7-8 minutes to 2 minutes ensuring that the additional product is sold and is sold efficiently. As is often the case in process improvement initiatives, staff were initially concerned that the Lean approach would lead to job cuts or wage reductions but staff have redeployed to other areas of the business, gained new skills and received wage increases annually.

Processes for problem-solving have changed with six meetings held throughout the year. And a number of process improvement projects are underway at any point in time

Changes in corporate culture

Over the last 5 years, changes have been evident – particularly from a cultural standpoint according to Managing Director Kevin Mahon. “We have noticed a real change in our culture. Previously, our problem solving skills would have been ‘Band-Aid’ at best. Now we try to identify the root cause which means we’re no longer resolving the same problem over and over”.  

Managing Director Ciaran Cuddy has also seen a change in the level of engagement amongst the team, adding “the engagement of our people is perhaps the biggest change over the last 5 years. We actively encourage our team to highlight problems on a daily basis”.

About LeanTransform

LeanTransform is a large scale, extensive and holistic company transformation programme run by Enterprise Ireland.  

LeanTransform projects should:

  • deliver company-wide transformation in culture and productivity performance; building capability and capacity in people and processes
  • embed the competencies necessary for on-going competitiveness gains in the company
  • result in sustainable improvement in the business and across its supply chain  

Assignments will typically run for up to 2 years. The assignment is preceded by a scoping exercise.

LeanTransform is open to all Enterprise Ireland clients or potential clients who have been trading for at least 5 years engaged in manufacturing or eligible internationally traded services. The LeanTransform initiative is primarily designed for larger companies with significant operations who can demonstrate to Enterprise Ireland that they have existing capability and resources to implement a programme of this scale.

For more information 

Find out more about Klasmann-Deilmann Ireland.

Find out about the key actions in Action Plan for Jobs 2016.

Read the full Action Plan for Jobs 2016 document

To find out what Lean initiatives are planned in 2016 see Chapter 9 of Action Plan for Jobs 2016.