Solvay is an international chemical group of companies. The company is active in 56 countries with almost 30,000 employees in 117 offices. Solvay Tavaux (France) is specialized in the development and production of fluoride polyvynilideen.
Solvay Tavaux has a central mechanical workshop with 70 employees whose core task is recovering parts, replacing components and to organize and execute the curative maintenance. In order to increase the service levels, the objective was to improve quality, delivery times and productivity.
After analysing the current situation, a program was composed together with Solvay to achieve a better planning system and to determine a set of key performance indicators. The program was based on ‘change by own Solvay staff’. Solvay employees were constantly involved through personal and/or group discussions, observations in various activities and ‘brown paper‘ workshops.
The Solvay’s Maintenance workshop had realised in 2013 a first part of their change program by introducing 5S working methods on the floor. The successful implementation was the bases to go a step further in changing their working methods in the repair shop.
We are very satisfied with the approach taken by PDM through this project. We agreed to have an audit 6 months after the implementation. We can now conclude that we have made many steps forward and that a significant change of behavior by our management has been achieved.