Leading the Change

Dear all,

I am now four months into my second Cross Border year and the assignment with the Operational Excellence Europe team. While most of you are familiar with the term ‘Operational Excellence’, for some of you it might sound a bit puzzling at first. So what is the Operational Excellence Europe team actually doing?

The scope of the Operational Excellence Europe (OPEX Europe) department includes a broad variety of LSG Sky Chefs’ competencies such as the LSG Production System, Quality, Security, and Last Mile Logistics.

As a result of this wide range of business fields, I will have the opportunity to gain insight into multiple areas of the company while completing a number of trainings in each of the fields mentioned.

In addition to the topics above, I was able to choose a focus task that will cover the entire assignment:

Since joining the Operational Excellence Europe team back in September 2015, I am assigned to a project at our CSC in Brussels, Belgium, which is looking at improvement opportunities in various parts of the business and therefore is split into different sub-projects. One of these work streams is looking at the warehouse where I am working on the project ‘Frozen Flow’.

The ‘Frozen Flow’ project is looking at two areas in particular – the reduction of dead as well as sleeping stock and the implementation of a just in time (JIT) ordering process for frozen goods. The objective is to establish an external logistics platform that serves as an outsourced warehouse for frozen goods while setting up a process that allows for customized ordering so that products are delivered to the CSC just in time for production.

The completion of the project will allow our CSC in Brussels to reduce internal storage space which will ultimately lead to a reduced internal freezer capacity. The results are cost savings and better flexibility for the unit.

Overall, I have to say that being able to work on the ‘Frozen Flow’ project is an exciting challenge. The project spreads across different departments and allows me to work with colleagues from Brussels and Frankfurt as well as external partners. Furthermore, it is a great and very rewarding experience to set up a new process from scratch and to see how it comes to life.

In my next blog entry, I will give you an update on the project here in Brussels and what we were able to accomplish so far. Make sure to stop by!

Simon