The Just Don't Get It!

"We're evaluating whether to move your work to a larger facility. We can't support your fixed costs and overhead with the volume you're generating." The plant had been steadfastly committed to its original vision, but the market realities no longer supported it. I pulled the plant leadership team together with a simple message: "Not on our watch." This wasn't a time for incremental improvements or continuous improvement projects. We needed to take strong action to save the plant. That action required a complete overhaul of the business model and operating platform to drive revenue and profitability. Here's how we applied every principle in this chapter: We used data to define the problem precisely—not just "low volume" but the specific reality that Chinese printers were delivering products at prices we could not match with our cost structure. We quantified the full cost of the current state—we had too many people for our volume. Fixed costs designed for high-volume production couldn't be supported by the work we could still win. Labor cost

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