What we do
Services
We adjust to your specific needs. Below is what we do, and what it has delivered for clients — with the numbers.
01
Operational Excellence
Find out how your operation really performs, then build and run the plan that improves it.
01Operational diagnostic
We assess the performance and maturity of your processes and operations, and put together the best plan to improve them — redefining and clarifying organisational roles, establishing solid operating principles and mechanisms, and executing focused improvement projects.
A large multinational had serious production and on-time delivery problems on a high-tech, low-volume, customer-critical component at a US plant. We interviewed over 40 supply chain and production people, walked the processes on the factory floor and delivered a full supply-chain diagnostic — from quotation to delivery to invoicing, including ERP configuration — plus a detailed improvement plan.
- +38%
- On-time delivery
- −60%
- Overdue backlog
02Operational Excellence definition and deployment
Based on the diagnostic we help you establish an Operational Excellence roadmap — from a company-wide Lean Six Sigma initiative to a focused plan of projects and Kaizen events. We lay out the programme fundamentals, train and coach your teams, and guide the projects so your investment returns.
A European copper processing multinational set aggressive inventory reduction targets across 16 plants. We defined the vision and plan, ran Lean awareness sessions for executives and middle managers, trained over 200 employees in Lean and Six Sigma, set up the support and governance structure, and coached teams through more than 100 Kaizen events.
- −30%
- Inventory in year one
- €100M
- Cash freed up
- 200+
- Employees trained
03Focused improvement projects
We support the execution of specific improvement projects under two models: “we lead, you support”, where we take full responsibility for the project and its results; or “you lead, we support”, where we coach and provide technical backing to your teams. Either way, strong business sponsorship is critical — it supplies the domain expertise, enables knowledge transfer and keeps the pace up.
We led a team of nurses, doctors and support staff at a leading hospital to improve the children’s surgical service supply chain through a series of Kaizen events.
- −30%
- Stock and space used
- 35 min
- Admin time returned to patient care, per nurse per day
04Packaged operational excellence solutions
Some problems are common enough that we have productised the answer. “Energy Treasure Hunts” and “Raw Materials Treasure Hunts” are two such services: two weeks of data capture and analysis, then a two-to-three day Kaizen event to identify, quantify and plan energy or material waste reduction across a plant or site.
A series of Energy Treasure Hunt events helped a food packaging multinational cut energy costs across four sites; Raw Materials Treasure Hunts at the same company cut materials waste. Similar events elsewhere have produced 15–30% energy cost reductions and up to 40% materials waste reduction.
- €900K
- Annual energy saving, 4 sites
- €1M
- Annual raw material waste saving
02
Innovation
Innovation is a system, not a workshop — the behaviours and governance that make ideas ship.
01Building innovation capability
In a world that demands faster and bolder innovation in business models, products, services, processes and channels, we help you identify your needs and opportunities, create an innovation-oriented environment, develop the right employee behaviours, provide expertise and training in innovation and creativity tools, and ultimately build a system where ideas are both created and implemented.
Any company that wants innovation capability has to establish the right behaviours as part of its culture first. Our “BEACONS” model helps companies adopt those behaviours and create an open, challenging environment that embraces change and simplification — and gives innovative ideas the traction they need to survive contact with the organisation.
02Creativity facilitation
We boost creativity by introducing tools and techniques for both individuals and teams, and by facilitating sessions focused on generating ideas or finding out-of-the-box approaches to recurring organisational, process, product or service problems.
A global leader in plastic materials was struggling with direct material costs — materials were 60–65% of total production cost, hurting profitability and competitiveness. Through a series of creativity events we helped them find optimal formulations for several hundred products.
- 30–40%
- Material cost saving
03Product and process innovation
We support focused innovation projects on your products and processes — or help you establish an NPI (New Product Introduction) methodology and governance that puts the business, not the lab, in charge of innovation projects: a new product or service, a new process, or a new IT application.
We supported the R&D team at a home appliances company in developing innovative new equipment: defining the design and validation testing processes to guarantee quality and performance, and developing the customer service processes needed to support the product once it reached the market.
03
Organisational Change
The best-designed initiative fails if the organisation will not accept it. That is where transformations die.
01Leadership engagement and coaching
The single most critical factor in any Operational Excellence or Innovation initiative is genuine understanding, commitment and traction from the business leadership team. We engage your executives to win that commitment, train them on the principles and methodologies, and coach them through the initial roll-out.
A large multinational in the energy sector wanted to deploy a group-wide Operational Performance initiative. We worked with top management in each division to assess operational maturity and readiness to change, then ran workshops to build a common language, set the vision, identify improvement levers and critical success factors, and define the roadmap.
02Organisational change planning
Once the leadership team genuinely supports the initiative, we help you diagnose how suitable your current organisation is for implementation, design the organisational changes a successful roll-out requires, define training and support needs at every level, and design the roll-out process itself.
We worked with a newly appointed technology director at a mid-sized construction materials company to find the root causes of poor operational performance and the missing excellence mindset, define training needs at management and operator level, deliver the training, and build the organisational structure the initiative needed to survive.
03Change acceleration
The success of your initiative depends far more on its acceptance inside the organisation than on how good the design and planning are. Our change management methodology covers the critical steps: creating the need for change, defining and communicating the future vision, and driving organisational commitment.
A leading pharmaceutical company needed support at every organisational level for a new operational excellence initiative. We ran the diagnostic, defined a common message that named the issues and the future vision honestly, and built the communication strategy that kept everyone engaged with progress, results and next steps.
04Governance
We help you drive the initiative day to day: supporting your teams through roll-out and project execution, creating a rhythm, pushing for results, and making sure the principles and methodology end up part of the culture rather than a binder on a shelf.
One of our consultants co-led the improvement initiative at a division of a large multinational alongside the Business Unit General Manager — putting mechanisms in place to identify opportunities, establishing KPIs and objectives, and managing a portfolio of actions with regular project reviews, methodology assurance and progress monitoring.
04
Training
More than four thousand professionals trained across 29 countries, always adapted to the audience and their own live projects.
01What we teach
Kairos Management is an experienced provider of professional training in operational excellence and innovation. Our catalogue covers executive awareness workshops; Lean Manufacturing and Lean Services; Lean Six Sigma at Green Belt, Black Belt and Master Black Belt level; Design for Lean Six Sigma; creativity techniques; change management and facilitation skills; project management; “Train the Trainer” — learning styles and teaching techniques; and training material development and licensing.
Training delivery is always adapted to the needs of the audience: we use examples and exercises relevant to the participants, encourage them to bring their own projects for discussion, and modulate how deeply we cover each principle and tool. We also develop fully custom programmes.
- >4.000
- Professionals trained
- 29
- Countries
Can we help you improve your operations?
Tell us where it hurts. We will tell you honestly whether we are the right people for it.