Situation
Star Blends had grown rapidly in the prior years prompting the building of a new mill in Chippewa Falls. After initial growth in sales with the mill addition, facility utilization plateaued at approximately 25%.
There was a true lack of focus and direction, process documentation, transparency, and accountability, as well as over-complicated processes/systems and stagnated sales/revenue growth. Many decisions were made using gut reaction rather than data. They had very committed employees, but they were extremely frustrated.
General Manager Erica Grant consulted the MOC because she had worked with them in the past and knew the great results that had been achieved for a much lower cost than other consultants.
Solution
Star Blends first worked with the MOC to process map their purchasing, sales, budding/pricing processes. Most recently they implemented the BOS (Business Operating System), which has been the most beneficial and impactful to date. The process mapping helped to shed light on the gaps within these areas, the need for role clarity, and the over-complication/lack of documented processes. The BOS has helped them to become focused on the true issues in the company. This has helped focus and start solving the issues which included setting a solid strategy to address the issues/gaps that were both short and long-term, i.e., quarterly, 1, 3, 5 years.
Results
With the implementation of the BOS and a variety of other items from the process mapping and pricing projects, Star Blends has a solid strategy, and was able to place the right people in the right seats which makes all the difference in the world. They have developed a new vision that reminds everyone why they do what they do each day. New core values were developed as well.
Meaningful KPIs have been established that continue to be refined to make sure they are guiding the business. With L10 meetings, they are accomplishing more because of better time management and holding one another accountable. Their team has increased their financial knowledge which helps everyone to better understand the business and make decisions that are based on data and facts rather than gut. Transparency has increased at all levels of the business from the Strategic Leadership Team to the BOS and the mill/drivers/office staff/sales, etc.
- Improved % of quarterly projects accomplished from less than 50% to 90%
- Identified buying power/savins opportunities on multiple ingredients reducing cost of goods sold by over $200K
- Transparency increased - financials are now shared with the whole company on a quarterly basis and there is a full review with the strategic leadership team monthly
Testimonial
"Our experience with the MOC was great. They were flexible and found times to meet with us that worked for our busy schedules, allowing us to get our work done and keep projects moving forward. They were knowledgeable about the subject matter we were working on and were able to ask the tough questions and get us to think outside the box to find new ways of doing things.
The MOC is a great resource because they have a variety of PMs with different skill sets. They bring new ideas and potential solutions to the table. Also, the cost can't be beat!" - Erica Grant, General Manager