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Europe - 2007
Understanding, Delivering on Customer Needs
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For Alcoa's European Mill Products (EMP), uncovering customer needs through a realigned marketing organization and the use of the Alcoa Growth Process is only part of its success equation. Consistently meeting those needs with the Alcoa Business System (ABS) is what delivers results.
After establishing a focused marketing organization in late 2004, EMP next identified markets that were important to the business and attached a product manager and technical resources to each. The business began deploying the Alcoa Growth Process in these sectors to gain a better understanding of each market and create Alcoa's value proposition to it. In addition, EMP trained key people to sell a specific product so they could develop strong relationships with customers.
To ensure it could deliver on customer needs, EMP began implementing ABS to take waste out of its production processes and improve efficiency and quality. The business engaged employees on the shop floor to uncover and address issues that ranged from equipment downtime to bottlenecks and quality.
The effort is producing results. The Kitts Green location in the United Kingdom has increased its product offerings each year through increased productivity and reliability of processes and equipment. In Spain, the Alicante location had overloaded production to support its customers' efforts but could not deliver. By applying ABS basics and reducing volumes offered to customers until the processes were stable, the location is now meeting customer expectations.
EMP also implemented a business-wide ABS initiative that reduced product lead time for some products from five to six weeks to two without increasing inventory levels.
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