“It’s better and more efficient these days”
Brigitte Vöster-Alber is the CEO of Geze, a family-run company headquartered in the Swabian town of Leonberg near Stuttgart. A “hidden champion” in technology, the company makes systems that open and close doors and windows in buildings throughout the world. It can look back on a tradition that spans more than 150 years. “When you have such a long-standing history of production like we do,” says Vöster-Alber, “you reach a point when you tell yourself it can surely be done better and more efficiently these days.”
Working together with Porsche Consulting, Geze’s employees drew up a site development program with six stages of implementation. All areas of production were subsequently reorganized on a step-by-step basis to be lean and process-oriented. As a result, productivity has risen by 15 percent, production backlogs have been substantially reduced, and delivery performance has been significantly increased. This is an enormous advantage, for when a certain Geze product is needed at a construction site somewhere in the world it often has to get there extremely quickly. Along with enhancing speed, Geze was equally interested in making sure its new structures would work on a permanent basis. A crucial component in the process consists of greater flexibility in production. To cushion peak times and to make optimal use of personnel, the employees were given the qualifications required to do multiple jobs. For Executive Assistant Marc Alber, this approach has paid off very well. “We are now in a position to grow without having to hire large numbers of new employees.”