PE Backed Agricultural Equipment Manufacturer
When TBM arrived at this multi-building manufacturing facility, the company’s highest-revenue product line was producing 7 units a day against demand requiring more than four times that output — and a backlog exceeding 180 days had quietly accumulated. The parent private equity group, recognising that the site was falling short of its financial targets and that the flagship product backlog had become a ceiling on revenue growth, engaged TBM to diagnose the operation and drive a production rate recovery. The goal was straightforward: unlock the capacity that was already there, stop the bleeding, and build a management system that would hold the gains after TBM left.
At TBM’s arrival, inventory accuracy across three buildings was below 10% — creating part shortages that halted assembly jobs mid-build and had half a dozen people per shift doing nothing but looking for lost inventory. No Clear to Build process, no standard work, and no formal management system meant supervisors spent their days expediting parts and firefighting rather than managing performance. Weld defects moved downstream undetected, paint operations were overstaffed and scattered across five areas, and the daily meeting reviewed yesterday’s problems without deciding anything about them
TBM structured the engagement as five simultaneous workstreams — inventory accuracy, production ramp, paint productivity, weld quality, and a digital management system — deployed from week one rather than sequenced in phases. Boosting assembly line output required simultaneous containment and construction: stopping the bleeding while building the systems that would prevent it from recurring. The manufacturing ramp up was tied to a phased plan — 7→10, 10→13, 13→15, 15→18 units/day — each step with specific dates, owners, and deliverables. Seven structured playbooks were transferred at Phase 1 exit, with role assignments made by name before TBM’s departure.
Over 26 weeks, this production rate recovery delivered measurable improvement across every workstream:
The digital management system — iObeya SQDC dashboards, tiered daily meetings, and custom Claude AI Dashboards covering efficiency, line balancing, SKU margin, and capacity planning — now runs without TBM support. Every performance gap has an owner and a fix date before the meeting ends.
Learn more about how we help companies in the industrial equipment industry.
At a Glance
Client
Results
