THE CHALLENGE

Perhaps best known for their Duck® brand duct tape, Henkel Consumer Adhesives (formerly Manco Inc.) offers a wide range of products under their Duck, LePage, and Loctite brands. These items are sold by retailing giants such as Wal-Mart and Lowes, and Henkel must react quickly to ever-changing market demands. When introducing new products and managing the change of existing items, Henkel has traditionally struggled with the set-up of master data in its ERP system. Key attributes of a product’s make-up including labeling, graphics, packaging, manufacturing, and logistics all contribute to the individual identity of Henkel’s thousands of items, driving downstream processes. Many different functional areas formerly input data into the system, where hundreds of items were in the set-up process at the same time, all on different schedules, with different priorities. With so many hands in the pot and so many input variables, the system lacked control. This, in turn, stressed the company’s agility in the marketplace and caused gnashing of teeth internally. Henkel needed a more streamlined business process, with increased flexibility, consistency, and accuracy that allowed better grasp of project priorities, and reduced time to market.

THE APPROACH

In April, 2003, Henkel asked MAGNET Lean Office experts to facilitate a Kaizen event to streamline their item set-up process. Together they developed a “current state” map of the business process, brainstormed ideas to reinvent the process, and created a “future state” map of how an optimum item set-up system could operate. As a result, the company established its Accelerated Project Management (APM) group. This centralized hub for all item set-up is staffed by six full-time, dedicated personnel. The APM team develops data for each project in a standard format, assigns resources and timing, facilitates priorities, and administers all data management. In addition they created a two-phase process, much like a mini stage-gate system, to manage movement of items through the set-up process. In the past, data sets were created for many products that never made it to the marketplace, clogging-up the system. The two-phase process significantly reduces unnecessary data population and provides much better visibility across the organization of the highest priority items.

CUSTOMER QUOTE

“MAGNET was the catalyst that brought discipline and credibility to process change and standardization within Henkel.”
Chris Latkovic - Director, Manufacturing

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