Project management

Our areas of expertise :

• Optimisation of management systems (ISO 9001 / IATF 16949 / EN 9100 / 14001 / 45001…).
• Support for certification.
• Lean and 6 Sigma performance improvement projects.

Save your margins by eliminating non-value added:

Euro-Symbiose supports small and large companies in optimising their resources in order to maintain their production quality while lowering costs. To achieve this, it is necessary to change the way of thinking and organising activities: everything that is unnecessarily expensive must be tracked down! Thus, stock levels, surface areas used, movements around the lines, the rate of use of equipment or even the workloads between posts and the waiting times they generate must be reconsidered from the point of view of the added value brought to the product or service. This method, called “Lean”, is of course a remedy for depressed economic sectors, but also a way of coping with strong growth without exploding capital expenditure.

Testimony of Christophe DHAENE, UAP project manager at VERESCENCE :

«  Throughout the design phase of the course, I worked mainly with Françoise JASNAULT, General Manager. After having clearly defined the need, we worked together to develop an à la carte course. We then enriched and adjusted it according to the feedback from the pilot UAPs that we had set up at each site. I appreciated the relevance of Françoise’s remarks and the pragmatic side of her approach, which was always centred on our needs and the expectations of the future PAUs. This project was ambitious, as we were starting from a rather “archaic” organisation with more than 400 people involved on 2 sites. The challenge was to introduce all this change in record time, and to motivate the players concerned without making them ‘sick’ of all the catching up to do. Today, performance management is carried out every day in the PSUs – by the RUAPs and leaders – and there is a real awareness on the part of the team members.

First of all, this reorganisation has made it possible to give responsibility to production team members (formerly operators in workshops of 100 to 150 people) in much smaller areas, around a leader whose main mission is to organise production to achieve the best possible performance given the hazards. In addition to being more autonomous and better organised, there is now a real sense of belonging for each person in his or her UAP, and a concern to know whether today’s performance is better than yesterday’s. The course built is a real success, we have really seen the leaders get into the game and now all the animation practices and reaction modes (e.g. QRQC) are in place. It’s a big change in the day-to-day management of production. 

 I think this is a real cultural change for SGD. The UAP model is inherited from the automotive sector and is therefore still not very common in the perfumery world. Since we have moved to UAP, our results have improved considerably. The fact that we are continually seeking to improve performance is visible: we are constantly progressing, “hooked” on the slope of progress in our cost, quality and delivery performance. Today, all our customers congratulate us on this change.

This production organisation model has become a standard for the SGD Group, and we are in the process of deploying it in all our sites worldwide. We hope that EURO-SYMBIOSE will continue to support us, especially in the development of the UAP at all SGD finishing sites in Europe, the United States and Brazil. »

► See also: Big cultural change for SGD

Testimony of Mr Vincent DETURCK, Continuous Improvement Manager in charge of the deployment of the Lean project:

« We started our collaboration with EURO-SYMBIOSE in September 2010 with a VSM project. This study allowed us to take a step back and to identify some dysfunctions on the different flows within our factory. Based on this experience, EURO-SYMBIOSE helped us launch the Lean method that we applied via various Kaizen and SMED projects. In 18 months, the factory has undergone organisational and visual transformations that are appreciated by both the management and the operators. »

Stop the random performance of the product or service:

When customer satisfaction is not systematic, the poorly controlled product/service generates irregular results without any explanation of the root cause of these hazards. It is then necessary to dig into these problems which reappear regularly and from which one does not know how to get rid of them: this is the price of regularity in excellence. Understanding the causes at the origin of the problem is not easy: it requires systematic analysis and serious data collection. Statistical processing of this data makes it possible to identify and demonstrate the true responsibility of the causes, or even their role in the occurrence of a problem. Thus, corrective and improvement actions will be more effective and affordable. This approach is particularly relevant when the challenge of improving the current situation is strategic for the company. This research and analysis work often requires a real project management involving multiple skills in the company. Focusing on complete and systematic customer satisfaction is not only a solution to proven problems, it is also a way to design products and processes in a robust way so that quality is achieved from day one.

Testimony of François TOURNOUX, Deputy Quality Director at AUBERT & DUVAL :

«Effective corrective action is a guarantee of success in reducing non-quality, and therefore in improving performance. This inevitably starts with a judicious choice of actions, which cannot be done without identifying the root causes. This approach, which is not “natural”, can be boosted by methods such as 8D. This is the choice we have made. EURO-SYMBIOSE supports us in the training and deployment of this method. In total, about a hundred technicians will be trained in this tool while dealing with real subjects that have enabled us to make concrete progress. We appreciated the very hands-on aspect of the training sessions, led by a competent speaker who listened to us, and illustrated by concrete examples. Because the resolution of a quality problem must be taken in charge by the operational managers, the culture and systematic practice of 8D is an asset.

Our company, which is very involved in the aeronautical sector, wanted to systematise the application of the 8D method for solving its problems and to strengthen its training effort by broadening the audience capable of leading and disseminating this approach. Indeed, the aim is to make the facilitation of problem solving as close as possible to the operational production managers. This is the mission that AUBERT & DUVAL has entrusted to EURO-SYMBIOSE through a deployment of training-action on its various production sites. »

Testimony of Michel AKOUM, Chairman and CEO of NOVOFERM France:

«  Our results are, to date, very positive thanks to the professionalism of EURO-SYMBIOSE and its team. The consultants were able to work upstream and meet our expectations by integrating my vision and my strategy. More specifically, Valérie LE COUËDIC has accompanied the creation of a TQM (Total Quality Management) Department and the construction of the process map. »

►See also : New successful collaboration between NOVOFERM and EURO-SYMBIOSE

Spontaneous testimony from Thierry Charpentier, Quality and Organisation Director at CAIB:

« As CAIB’s Quality and Organisation Director and co-pilot of the project, I can confirm that with Valérie LE COUËDIC we have been able, while confirming and strengthening the Quality system already in place, to consolidate the Quality spirit and will within the production teams. In particular, the QRQC has enabled us to unite all the players around concrete Quality concerns.
The partnership with Valérie was very rich, from the common and relevant definition of the action plan, the assistance to the project management, to the training-action of the Quality actors on the field, which allowed CAIB to be progressively autonomous and efficient.»

►See also: CAIB – “Our results have never been as good as they are right now in terms of quality…

Spontaneous testimony from Mr David GUICHARD, Director of the BOURSIN factory:

« When EURO-SYMBIOSE accompanied us in the construction of the quality system of the Evron site, we succeeded in setting up a real management of the company, based on the processes. Indeed, the management has benefited from a real tool for deploying its strategy through the process approach, a relevant strategic dashboard and pilots who are aware of their role as facilitators and relays to the operational departments. I now hope that EURO-SYMBIOSE will help us achieve this result at the Boursin site. »

What is well thought out, is achieved without hindrance: anticipating risks, faults and/or dangers means being in a continuous search for improvement.

Whether it is a question of satisfying customers, preserving the environment or protecting people from health and safety hazards, everything is first and foremost a question of anticipation and organisation. The total eradication of risks is not a reality, but it is possible to minimize their occurrence and reduce the severity of their consequences. Depending on your needs, EURO-SYMBIOSE trains your employees or intervenes in your company to assist you in controlling risks.

These issues must be integrated into the heart of the strategy: combining business with social responsibility is the price of a sustainable market presence.

Therefore, resource conservation and global warming – to name but a few – must explicitly influence our decisions. In the short and medium term, sustainability – as a driver of economy and innovation – can become a real competitive advantage. Integrating sustainable development into the heart of our strategy means choosing a sustainable winning option and meeting social, societal and environmental expectations.

Because the sources of productivity are not only on the shop floor:

Production support functions (purchasing, sales, HR, etc.) are also in charge of data processing flows (documents, information, etc.). They are also cluttered with waiting time, storage, or duplication that does not add value to customers but increases the cost price of the product or service. Non-production teams must therefore rethink the way they do things in order to control costs and satisfy customer needs. Lean Office, 5S, or even transactional 6 Sigma projects are all techniques that are now well established and adapted to the context and challenges of support functions. It is not a question of imitating manufacturing or, conversely, of obstructing Lean concepts: the problem of increasing the efficiency of support functions involves processes, smoothing out workloads and eliminating non-value added activities (waiting, duplication, etc.).

Gaining flexibility and reacting more quickly to market expectations:

The multiplication of references, the reduction of life cycles and the reduction of series are all factors that make it more difficult to control the entire chain. In order to gain flexibility and react more quickly to market expectations, it is therefore necessary to rethink the organisation logic of this chain as well as the management tools.

Projets Lean Manufacturing et 6 Sigma :

Closed in April 2014, the objectives of the improvement project were brilliantly achieved. Jean-Marc BAROIS, Engineering Manager at PHOTONIS, says: “I didn’t expect such a success at all, the objective seemed very ambitious, even utopian. Richard BEDRUNE, Quality Manager also involved in the project, adds: “We thought we had tried everything to solve the problem. The results obtained with the 6 Sigma method far exceeded our expectations. At the end of the project, the results were even more significant than expected: +60% efficiency compared to the expected 30% and a division by 3 of the time spent in the workshop. The team also noted an improvement in working conditions and better process control.

►See also: PHOTONIS and EURO-SYMBIOSE take up the challenge

Testimony of Frédéric ADAM, Industrial Affairs Director of RIVADIS Laboratories:

« We were impressed by the concrete and detailed way in which the innovative solutions were implemented, with the attention to detail and the constant involvement of the teams. Each of our 2 projects has resulted in measured and collected gains! In this, the approach is very satisfactory. »