- OTIF drops, the customer becomes anxious and demands special measures or audits
- Breakdowns, missing parts and quality problems force daily replanning
- Maintenance and suppliers cannot keep up with the critical issues
- Key people are overloaded; absence or turnover creates knowledge gaps
Quick Savings Assessment for manufacturing sites
You keep operations running.
But where are you losing profit?
Orders have to ship. Customers apply pressure. Key people fight fires. And while everyone is fighting, the real losses keep running.
One week on site brings together what day-to-day operations keep apart: data, processes and your people’s knowledge. Afterwards, you receive a decision brief validated with the stakeholders – with prioritised performance levers, potential ranges, quick wins and the next effective steps.
25+ years in Operational Excellence120+ consulting projectsGermany & EuropeDE · EN · FR
FoodChemiePlasticsPharmaConsumer Goods
When day-to-day operations overshadow everything
Your best people solve problems every day. That is precisely why nobody sees the full loss system any more.
Your biggest customer escalates. An order is at risk. Quality, planning, purchasing, maintenance and production all pull at once. Each function saves its own slice – while the same causes cost time, capacity and margin again tomorrow.
That is not a failure of your team. It is the result of a system that forces its strongest people to compensate continuously.
The most dangerous losses are not the loudest. They are the ones your plant has long grown used to – and therefore nobody challenges consistently any more.
- Which lost hour at the real bottleneck actually costs profit
- Which material and quality losses have been treated as normal for years
- Which measures solve causes – and which merely keep symptoms busy
- Which lever matters first when time, money and management capacity are scarce
Blind spots despite KPIs
You see deviations. But do you also see what your system no longer reports?
Is your Pareto really focused on the economically decisive causes – or mainly on what is easy to measure? Are your teams working on the bottleneck or on the loudest disruption?
We connect KPIs, observations and the knowledge of people on site. This makes it clear which deviation merely stands out – and which loss really burdens margin, capacity or delivery performance.
Six perspectives · one commercial focus
Six perspectives on your operational performance
Not every loss sits inside a machine. We look at how assets, materials, people, leadership, energy and the capacity to change work together – always asking: Where does profit leak, and which lever matters first?
Assets & processes
OEE, bottlenecks, downtime, changeovers and usable capacity.
Materials & yield
Scrap, yield, rework, inventory and material flow.
Organisation & people
Waiting, interfaces, shifts and effective use of people's time – not a headcount-cutting exercise.
Leadership & control
Targets, KPIs, shopfloor management, decisions and escalation.
Energy & utilities
Power, heat, steam, cooling, compressed air and water as operational cost drivers.
Improvement & change
Problem-solving, involvement and execution; digital tools and AI only where they create tangible value.
Self-check: three questions per perspective →
The QSA pinpoints causes of loss, evaluates ranges of potential and prioritises action. Management also receives direct input on obvious quick wins during the assessment.
Operational implementation is a separate step. Further support takes place only if commissioned separately.
What remained invisible despite Lean, KPIs and initiatives
1.2–4.5 Mio. € identified potential per site.
The sites examined had KPIs, experienced leaders and ongoing improvement work. Yet economically relevant connections between material, assets and organisation remained unrecognised or insufficiently prioritised.
The blind spot: Almost all analysed sites were already working with Lean, improvement or Operational Excellence programmes. Activity was not missing. What was missing was a robust answer to which few causes actually determine performance.
Anonymised potential per site in plastics manufacturingPotential in Mio. €
Sorted by the midpoint of the documented potential range. Dashed: median 2.00 Mio. €.
Where performance hides
Losses rarely sit in just one function.
Material, assets and organisation reinforce each other. Historical magnitudes show why an isolated KPI or a single Pareto often fails to capture the full economic impact. The values are not additive because their scopes differ.
Cross-industry experience
Quantified potential and further assessment contexts
All cases are anonymised. Figures are stated only where historical records documented a potential range. Pre-reads and in-depth workshops document additional industry and method experience.
Plastics manufacturing
1.2–4.5 Mio. €Identified potential range per site across material, assets and organisation.
Food manufacturing
1.2–3.5 Mio. €Site A: 1.2–1.3 Mio. € p.a., including 0.53 Mio. € asset, 0.38–0.50 Mio. € material and 0.28 Mio. € organisational efficiency. Site B: 3.0–3.5 Mio. €.
Chemical manufacturing
1.2–2.0+ Mio. €One quantified assessment; equivalent to around 0.9–1.5% of annual revenue at the time. Supplemented by qualitative continuous-improvement and organisational analysis.
Glass and mineral wool manufacturing
1.2–1.7 Mio. €Anonymised project work with identified potential in material, assets and organisation. Also restructuring and process optimisation to rescue a smaller glass plant – without a monetary estimate. No attribution to individual customers or results.
References · More than 25 years in industry
When others say, “We have already tried everything,” the real root-cause work begins.
Persistent manufacturing problems cannot be solved with one more method slide. They require distance from day-to-day operations, analytical depth and enough experience to connect data, process reality and people’s knowledge into a reliable picture.
Selected companies from projects and previous consulting roles
A selection from projects in direct engagements, previous consulting roles and cooperations. The references describe project experience and do not state current client relationships or endorsement by the companies named.
Special strength: Problems that have moved through the plant for months, been covered with measures or are already considered “unsolvable”. RCFA, Kepner-Tregoe, Lean Six Sigma and Design of Experiments have repeatedly clarified persistent technical and quality causes – including in consumer-goods and chemical manufacturing.
FMCG · Food · Consumer
Unilever · Südzucker · Lieken · dalli group · Symrise · REWE Group · Manns
Packaging · industry
RKW · Klöckner Pentaplast · THIMM Packaging · Nabenhauer Packaging
Pharma · Life Sciences
Roche Diagnostics · MSD · Merck · Sartorius · Fresenius Medical Care · Aventis
Chemicals · process industry
BASF · BASF Colors & Effects · Henkel · Shell · ICL · Archroma
The cost of not looking
How much performance is left on the table because nobody can build the full picture in day-to-day operations?
In historical cases, the usual range of identified potential was 3.0–6.3% of revenue; the lowest value was around 2.0% at a low-margin site. This is not a forecast for your plant. But it shows why not knowing is not an economically neutral position.
25 Mio. €500 Mio. €
Identified potential as % of site revenueAnonymised distribution
<1 %
1–2 %
16 %
2–3 %
32 %
3–4 %
32 %
4–5 %
17 %
>5 %
Indicative, anonymised distribution of historical revenue cases.
Estimated savings potential2 % of 100 Mio. € annual revenue
2,00 Mio. €
Scenario calculation, not a forecast or guarantee. You choose the percentage assumption yourself. Actual potential depends on the loss structure, bottlenecks, data quality and feasibility of implementation.
Assess your loss leversClarity without a new major project
We do not take knowledge away from your key people – we take on the analysis they do not have time for.
Your team should not spend weeks feeding a consultancy with data and workshops. We involve only the people genuinely needed for cause and solution – and bring their perspectives together into an economically prioritised overall view.
Initial
conversation
Where is the pressure? Which decision is blocked? We put performance pressure and the starting position into context.
approx. 30 minutesDecision
conversation
Agree scope, data access, value streams and decision framework.
45–60 MinutenOne week
on site
Focused where performance and implementation are decided:
- Kick-off session
- Expert interviews
- On-site observations
- Process observations
- Expert workshops
- Interactive mini-workshops on the “hot topics”
- Closing session with feedback
Analysis & decision brief
No slide deck without consequences: clear levers, potential ranges, quick wins and next steps.
2 weeksAn initial performance read-out is provided at the close on site. Findings and potential are then fed back to the stakeholders and consolidated into a decision-ready brief.
Interviews and observations are planned precisely. Kick-off and close provide direction; one or two mini-workshops address a “hot topic” visible on site. Those responsible help shape the solution – while operations continue.
Prioritised performance leversPotential ranges & assumptionsQuick wins & structural leversImplementation dependenciesManagement decision brief
The agreed deliverable: not a loose collection of ideas or a hope project, but a decision brief validated with the stakeholders. It shows where the plant loses performance, which levers matter first and which steps are needed for implementation. Actual realisation then depends on the decisions made and how they are implemented.
Quick Savings Assessment · investment and decision risk
Invest once. Identify recurring losses – and eliminate them sustainably.
Every month without clear priorities ties up capacity, material and leadership time again. Markets are getting faster, customers more demanding and alternatives more global. Not looking is therefore not a neutral decision.
A fixed price for a reliable decision basis
In anonymised historical site reports, the median identified potential is 2.0 Mio. € per site. Many causes are not one-off; they burden the plant for years. If resolved sustainably, the economic effects can continue in subsequent years.
2–5 %typical ratio between assessment investment and identified potential range
Impact logic
The price is calculated based on site size, scope and the number of value streams considered, and provided in writing after the initial conversation – with no monthly retainer and no automatic renewal.
We distinguish one-off and recurring effects: direct or indirect P&L-relevant savings as well as productivity and efficiency improvements.
What does another year of daily compensation cost you?
Special transport, overtime, scrap, rework, lost bottleneck capacity and customer escalations appear in different budgets. Together they weaken margin, delivery capability and responsiveness – often long before the total impact becomes visible.
0 €for the initial conversation and first assessment, regardless of outcome
If the data, bottleneck or decision framework do not support a reliable result, we say so before an engagement – not afterwards. This is not a savings guarantee; it is the commitment not to force an unsuitable assignment to fit.
18 key questions · 6 perspectives
Where does your site lack a reliable view?
Answer three questions for each perspective. Choose “Yes, reliably” only when the data, cause and financial impact are clear. Otherwise choose “Open / unclear”. Your radar of unanswered questions appears when you finish.
01 · Assets & processes
0/302 · Materials & yield
0/303 · Organisation & people
0/304 · Leadership & control
0/305 · Energy & utilities
0/306 · Improvement & change
0/3The objections that really matter
“We know our problems.” But do you also know their economic order of priority?
Individual problems are almost always known. What often remains unclear is how they are connected, what they cost economically and which lever brings the greatest relief first.
We know our problems. Why do we need someone from outside?
Because known individual problems do not yet create a reliable prioritisation. Your key people know their area – but rarely have the spare capacity and necessary distance to bring data, shop floor, interfaces and economic impact together into one picture. That is precisely the work the assessment takes on.
We already have a Lean or OpEx programme. What does this add?
Almost all evaluated sites had ongoing improvement programmes. The documented potential was identified in addition to initiatives already known. The difference is not another method, but an economic assessment: what actually costs performance? What sits at the bottleneck? What is a cause – and what is merely a conspicuous symptom?
Our data situation is not ideal. Is that an exclusion criterion?
Usually not. Preparation shows which production data can be analysed. Gaps are supplemented during the on-site week through observation, interviews and targeted samples, and marked as assumptions in the report. Where the basis is not sufficient, we say so in the initial conversation.
How much does the on-site week burden our operation?
Production continues as normal. What is needed are targeted conversations with production, maintenance, planning and quality, plus access to the shop floor. There is no workshop week and no parallel work groups taking the organisation out of operations for days.
Who needs to be available on the client side?
A sponsor with decision authority, an operational contact at the site and discussion partners from the relevant functions. Without a sponsor who can turn the results into a decision, the result is a report without impact – which is why this is clarified first in the initial conversation.
What happens after the assessment?
You receive a management decision brief with prioritised levers, potential ranges, assumptions and implementation dependencies. You can then decide independently and implement internally. Implementation support is optional and agreed separately – the assessment does not commit you to a follow-on project.
How reliable are the performance figures stated?
The figures come from anonymised historical performance reports and show the midpoint of a documented potential range – identified, not realised potential. Category values are not additive because scope and reporting logic vary by site. They cannot be transferred to your site as a flat rule.
Dr. Alexander W. Becker · manufacturing problem solver
Problems where others get stuck are my field of work.
Dr Alexander W. Becker holds a doctorate in the natural sciences and is an Operational Excellence expert and implementation consultant with more than 25 years of industrial experience. His special strength is the structured resolution of persistent manufacturing, quality and process problems – even where many measures have already been tried and the cause remains unclear.
Across more than 120 projects, he has analysed production systems, quantified savings potential, clarified technical causes and supported improvements from management to the shop floor. He combines Lean, Lean Six Sigma, RCFA, Kepner-Tregoe and Design of Experiments with pragmatic observation and the knowledge of people on site.
120+consulting projectsapprox. 40savings programmesapprox. 60Lean/OpEx engagements
You do not become dependent on a consultant: The potential map is designed as an independent decision basis. Implementation support is optional – only where it is genuinely needed.
What is putting the most pressure on your plant right now?
Describe the situation. I ask the questions that lead to the cause.
Customer escalation, OTIF, quality, missing capacity, scrap or a cost picture that cannot be explained coherently: in 30 minutes, we clarify whether the acute problem hides an economically relevant lever – and whether an assessment enables a reliable decision for you.
What happens in the initial conversation
01You describe what is happening at the plant – in your own words, without a prepared presentation.
02I ask about the bottleneck, pattern, data and economic impact, and distinguish symptom from possible cause.
03You receive an initial clear assessment: where is it worth looking more closely – and where probably not?
04If there is a good fit, a 45–60-minute decision conversation with the leadership team follows – then a written offer with fixed price, scope and timeframe.
No sales pitch and no follow-up loop without your consent.