Case Studies
Business Development Projects
US-Based Boxboard Production and Packaging Company
Business Process Analysis / Business Process Improvement
The Challenge:
Oldest Box-Board Paper Making Plant in the US was in jeopardy of closing down after a production worker died on-the-job and a serious OSHA event was recorded. The papermaking company experienced 12 consecutive quarters of losses subsequent to the employee’s death and was posting a $2 million annual revenue deficit. Company hired 4 consecutive consulting companies to analyze and improve operations. All previous attempts to turn the company around failed.
The Actions:
1. Conducted plant-wide discovery sessions to learn more about the accident, how production employees felt about the accident and to gain employee insights into how they felt the company needed to address and approach safety concerns.
2. Conducted a year-long safety audit with all four production crews and created the company’s first-ever production team break-recovery handbook.
3. The break-recovery handbook was developed as a composite of all production paper makers and represented the company’s first plant-wide production development and training program and effort.
4. Trained all production employees on new, safer, standardized break-recovery method(s).
The Result:
1. Increased the skill-level and knowledge of all production crews regarding safety measures, tactics, strategies and processes.
2. For the first time in the company’s history, standardized measures allowed members of production crews to transfer to other production teams. This increased operational effectiveness and production output by 40%.
3. After employee training, the company realized its first profitable year ($1 million + in revenue) after four years of straight losses.
4. Implemented and supported first ever top-down and cross functional communication tools, processes and channels between Senior Leadership and Staff and Line production professionals.
WYETH
Technology Optimization
The Challenge:
One of the largest global pharmaceutical companies was experiencing an operational and leadership rift between the Science and Information Technology leaders. This rift resulted in the development of $12 million dollars of “shadow IT” technology investments made by the various science leaders outside of the company’s official IT Department and Budget. Strong Point was engaged by a new Vice President of Clinical Information Technology to 1) improve the relationship between science and technology leaders; 2) rationalize and reduce the technology footprint of the company and to 3) implement a Science and Technology Governance Board and Process to manage and monitor the technology portfolio moving forward.
The Actions:
1. Conducted a Science IT Inventory Analysis that showed detailed picture of the complex and redundant technology infrastructure. As an example the IT Inventory Analysis showed 11 distinct instances of the Labware Laboratory Information Management System.
2. Assisted the VP with his efforts to develop a vision, strategic road map and core operating model(s) for the IT organization to support the Science Discovery, PreClinical Development and Vaccines business units.
3. Analyzed the core competencies of the IT Leadership team and taught them strategic planning, partner engagement and advanced Presentation and Communication Skills to help them work more effectively with the Science Leaders.
The Result:
1. Sponsored and facilitated the company’s first joint strategic planning sessions between IT and Science stakeholders.
2. Developed new competency Models for IT Leadership to increase capabilities in Business Analysis and Project Management.
3. Components of the revised Competency Framework and IT Operating Model were also adopted by other key Wyeth executives as a framework to be used across Wyeth IT and the corporation at large.
4. Worked with leaders of HR to upgrade the company’s professional job ladder to focus on 8 core competencies (Project Management, People Management, Business Analysis, Communication, Technology, Customer Relations, Leadership, Organizational Change/Training) vs a hierarchical job ladder (Role and Title based).
5. Flipped the ratio of investments from $2mil into IT and $12 million into “Shadow IT” (or IT Investments made by the Science Community) to $0 budget science investments to $22 million IT Investments.
6. Helped to Develop and Stand-Up an IT/Science Governance Board and Quarterly Review Process.