€90M
in Opportunities identified during the program
One Operations Community: Strong Performance on Every Playground
A global chemical company launched a joint performance improvement initiative with EFESO across twelve plants on four continents. Significant improvements in cost drivers and margins were achieved.
Chemicals
Manufacturing
People and Organization
Our Client
The client is a global chemical company specializing in synthetic materials, with manufacturing sites across multiple continents. It supplies advanced chemical products to customers in the automotive, tire, construction and energy industries, forming essential components in their production and value chains.
The Challenge
The company faced the need to realign its global production footprint and unlock new efficiency potential across twelve production sites in nine countries. With around 6,000 employees and highly diverse structures, heritage organizational cultures and technological systems, alignment was a complex challenge. Leadership defined three clear priorities: harmonize and professionalize workflows in production and maintenance, establish a sustainable infrastructure to support continuous improvement, and strengthen collaboration across all sites as a unified workforce.
The ambition was to create a shared “One Operations Community” that could connect teams across four continents and build long-term competitiveness. A high double-digit million improvement in annual EBITDA was set as a target, underlining the scale and urgency of the program. Within four years, over 230 improvement projects were completed, delivering €100M+ recurring benefits and proving the potential of a coordinated, cross-border transformation effort.
Real Results Achieved with our Clients
The transformation exceeded expectations. While the initial savings target was set at €40 million, cross-site collaboration and structured execution unlocked far greater value.
€120M
Realized benefits within four years
230
Improvement projects completed across 12 sites
Transformation Impact
- Built internal 'Continuous Improvement' infrastructure to sustain improvement
- Developed communication and change management infrastructure
- Implemented a proven, customized production system
- Established an internal PKE (Process Kaizen Engineer) Academy for the three competence centers/pillars
Our Approach
EFESO partnered with the company to design and implement a transformation program in successive phases: Potential Analysis, Program Design, and Boost & Build. Preparation focused on clear communication of the “why, what and how,” ensuring leadership alignment and workforce engagement. Site scans established KPIs, identified improvement potentials and documented best practices for global sharing. Based on this, the team developed a tailored production system with a standard toolkit, training in six languages, role blueprints, process specifications and a governance model.
In the BOOST phase, focus was on driving improvement projects with tangible benefits, install quick wins and deploy an organizational blueprint aligning roles across the sites.
In the BUILD phase, competence centers in Autonomous Management, Focused Improvement and Planned Maintenance were created, supported by a Process Kaizen Engineer Academy to secure knowledge transfer and sustain continuous improvement.
Related Services
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Together, we’ll develop performance-driven behaviors that turn intention into action—mobilizing teams, accelerating adoption, and sustaining results.
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EFESO impressed us with its hands-on mentality
in its OPEX projects.
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Facing Similar Transformation Challenges Across your Sites?
- Seeking to harmonize production systems and processes globally
- Looking to turn local initiatives into a unified, continuous improvement culture
- Ready to translate collaboration into lasting profitability gains
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