Recover a site
A site is missing its output, quality, cost or delivery targets, and every function has a different explanation.
We find the causes on the line and in the plan behind it, and stay until the site is back on target.
Operational excellence & turnaround
Losses found on the floor and costed, results measured in the P&L, and an operating system that keeps the gain after we leave.
We work in pharmaceutical, medical-device and aerospace plants, where no change reaches the line before it is approved and documented.
Where clients start
Three situations we are called in for.
Unsure which one is yours? The operational diagnostic (2 to 4 weeks) will show it.
Deliver the operational half of a turnaround
The analysis is done. The plan that turns it into action is missing, or it was written and has stalled.
We write the operational plan with your CFO and financial advisers, then deliver it. It covers the footprint, which sites to consolidate, how operations is organised and who leads it. The same plan sets the cost to come out of conversion and purchased spend, and the cash to come out of inventory and supplier terms.
We do not run debt restructuring or insolvency processes.
Build operational excellence that holds
Performance is acceptable, but improvement programmes fade once the programme team moves on, because the routines were never the line leader's own.
The improvement work becomes part of how the plant is run day to day, so it keeps going after the launch.
Services
What this covers.
Each service below can run as advice, delivery leadership or an operating role. What we never do is hand over a report at the door.
Throughput, OEE and capacity, modelled before you spend
The OEE on the board is rarely the OEE on the line. Short stops go unlogged. The ideal rate drifts down to last year's best week, and cleaning and line clearance drop out of the calculation. We rebuild the figure from the line, split it into availability, performance and quality losses, and price each lost point.
Then we work on the bottleneck. A point of OEE on a machine that is not the bottleneck adds stock, not output. Sometimes the bottleneck is not a machine at all: the QC laboratory in a pharma plant, or inspection in an aerospace one, where the loss shows up as days added to lead time. When capex is on the table, a simulation model tests the options first, so the capacity you already own is found before the money is approved.
Rapid operational diagnostic and due diligence
Two to four weeks in the plant and in the numbers. We follow the product through the site and check what we see against the accounts: where output is lost, what conversion and material cost, and how much inventory is waiting and why. We put a value on each loss. You get two or three actions, ranked by value and time to cash, each with a named owner. Acquirers get the same diagnostic before they sign.
Manufacturing strategy, footprint and site transfer
We work out where to make what, in how many sites, and at what landed cost with duties included. Each site gets its own cost baseline before anyone argues about consolidating or reshoring. In regulated plants the move itself carries most of the risk. Tech transfer, requalification and approval by regulators or customers set the timeline, and supply has to hold while both sites run. The approvals and the supply plan for the months both sites run go into one schedule, which we deliver with the people who will run your sites.
Lean, Six Sigma and TPM, where the losses are
The method follows the loss. Long changeovers get SMED. Repeat breakdowns get TPM, starting with planned maintenance. Product waiting between steps is a flow problem, and quality that varies from one run to the next is a Six Sigma problem. We do not roll a method out across the whole plant for its own sake. In validated environments each change goes through your change control, with the validation impact assessed before the trial. Your team learns on its own line and runs the next improvement without us.
Scale-up and new-facility readiness
Scale-ups usually slip on suppliers and on qualification, long before layout is the problem. We lay out the new line or suite around the flow of material and people, qualify the supply base for the new volume, and put equipment and process qualification on the same plan as the build. Roles and replenishment are set, and the shift routines are running, before production starts, so the first shortage does not cost you the start date.
Operations organisation and decision rights
With your leadership team we work out who decides what on the line, in the plant and across sites, including what a site may decide without asking head office. Roles follow how the work flows and are designed with the managers who will own them. Fewer decisions get escalated, and each one is taken where the information sits.
Performance management and daily control
The KPI tree runs from the P&L down to the shift, so OEE on the line connects to cost per unit in the plant and to EBITDA at group. Your leaders run tiered daily and weekly reviews and follow their own standard work. Every number has a named owner, and a slip is seen in the shift where it happens.
· Realised result: EBITDA up 10% in a global manufacturing turnaround, inside 12 months
Sound familiar?
The problems that bring clients here.
About Opyflow
Opyflow is an operations and supply chain consultancy, founded in 2019, working with manufacturers in regulated and high-complexity industries. Offices in Kiryat Ono, Israel and Melbourne, Australia; projects across Israel, Europe, the US and India. The senior person you talk to is the one who does the work.
We are done when it's in the P&L.
Describe the situation to the senior person who would do the work. You don't need to prepare data for it, and if we are not the right firm, we will say so.