Lean Transformation Case Study | Enterprise Growth & Revenue

Greenfield Global Inc. is the largest high-purity alcohol company in North America offering bulk and packaged ingredients and additives. Under its Pharmco brand, the company offers a wide range of bulk and packaged ingredients and additives to customers around the globe. Known for premium quality and service excellence, the Pharmco brand is a leading choice for industries manufacturing cosmetics, food and beverage flavoring, as well as personal care, life sciences, and pharmaceuticals.

The Pharmco brand has more than 30 years of experience in producing and packaging premium industrial alcohols and solvents. Custom formulations that meet the most rigorous standards, regulatory expertise, and superior logistics worldwide are a few of its competitive advantages. Also, many of its earth-friendly alcohol products help replace chemicals derived from petroleum.

Challenge
Corporate leadership recognized growing demand by existing customers while also addressing the needs of prospective customers posed a significant opportunity. The company tasked itself to grow the business with current resources by becoming more efficient, reducing waste, and developing more productive internal capabilities.

As a result, a business decision to incorporate Lean manufacturing tools and techniques into its production processes was made to improve operational and financial performance. Management and supervisory team members would also need to develop their skill sets further to maximize the productivity of the company workforce.

Integrating continuous improvement and building internal capacity would be a major undertaking and long term process. And, principles learned and implemented would form the foundation for improving all operations within the company.
Solution
To help achieve their business growth goals, Greenfield partnered with CONNSTEP to recommend and implement an enterprise-wide lean (EWL) strategy combined with management development, improved interdepartmental teamwork and a customer survey for its Pharmco brand.

The EWL model worked on the company mission and vision, set strategic objectives, and help build their lean resources, including sending several employees through CONNSTEP’s Continuous Improvement Champion Certification (CICC) program. The CICC program proved instrumental in helping grow the business without adding incremental resources.

In addition to creating Lean awareness and introducing the basic principles and practices of Lean manufacturing, a couple of kaizen’s were conducted to focus on process improvement and value stream mapping traced the production flow from raw material to finished product.

Management training workshops emphasized interactivity, experiential learning, conflict strategies, communication skills, time management, and understanding employee behavior.
Result
Lean awareness training combined with leadership mentoring led to improved production efficiencies and reduced waste. A key takeaway from the customer survey was that Greenfield’s Pharmco brand is known as high quality and low cost. This has enabled the company to enhance its margins over time, which, in combination with their EWL transformation, has increased revenue 34% and profitability by 39%.