Consumer Products

Superior Customer Value Always Wins

There’s nothing like an economic cataclysm to change how we do business. For manufacturers of durable consumer goods the recession and plunge in consumer spending has heightened already intense competition and pushed many companies into deep crisis mode. Business leaders have been forced to cut costs and make changes that would have been unthinkable a few years ago. But what happens after the crisis passes, after the economy bottoms out and begins to grow again? Because you know, sooner or later, it will bounce back.

In contrast manufacturers of fast-moving packaged goods, such as household cleaning, personal health and beauty products, are profiting from growing demand for environmentally friendly goods and shifts in consumer purchasing behaviors. Manufacturers of these products are struggling to maintain flexibility and add the new volume to their existing production lines. Will they be ready and able to adapt when consumer demand patterns change direction again? Because you know they will. They always do.

There’s no industry that’s more price sensitive and fickle than consumer products. Innovation is driven by intense shelf-space competition in grocery stores, department stores, malls and home improvement centers, keeps margins thin and leaves absolutely no room for error. Regardless of the current situation in your markets, it’s time to take a look at how your business delivers value to your customers, and figure out how to do it better than your competitors.

Experience You Can Trust

TBM's clients make luxury home products, windows, appliances and mattresses. They make batteries, apparel, sporting goods, household staples, toiletries, and packaging for many of the goods that consumers buy every day. We have worked with consumer products companies around the world to increase productivity and respond to demand fluctuations and rising materials and labor costs. We have helped clients:

  • Bring new products to market quickly at the targeted cost and quality
  • Synchronize production directly with consumer demand
  • Create highly visual, demand-responsive factories and supply chains
  • Leverage value-chain improvements to create competitive differentiation
  • Shorten delivery times and eliminate backlogs
  • Establish lean business performance measurement systems to sustain the gains from your continuous improvement activities

 

When we talk about better at TBM we’re not talking about a few points of net income. We’re talking about a sea change difference in how you innovate, manufacture and deliver products to your customers. Such differentiation can drive double-digit sales growth in a market that’s only growing in the low single digits. It leads to superior profitability that allows you to reward employees and shareholders and still make the necessary investments to increase your market advantage. That’s what we mean at TBM by enterprise transformation.

In today’s period of economic volatility, our clients have been able to minimize their investment in inventory while becoming more flexible and responsive to customer needs. They’ve segmented the volume and variability for each product line, and adjusted their production strategies to match current realities. They’ve achieved major labor cost and material savings and are zeroing in on their value streams, pulling their suppliers along with them on their lean journey and squeezing waste out of inbound and outbound logistics. By executing better, by increasing their pace of innovation and cost-control measures, they’re looking for opportunities to capitalize on the weaknesses of the competition.

For consumer products companies a Lean Sigma transformation starts with listening to your customers. You have to understand your customers’ needs inside and out to develop products that differentiate you from your competitors. Look at your markets, if you are not number one in market share, or rapidly on your way there, then you don’t really know your customer.

At TBM we help you build your continuous improvement team’s knowledge and skills, which includes classroom training, exposure to best practice operations, and hands-on coaching. We give you the tools and mindset that can be applied in manufacturing and other business functions, including sales, customer service, administration, and new product development. By helping to build your internal capabilities, we help you become self sufficient, accelerate the pace of change and sustain your gains.

To learn more about our experience and how we can help your company move forward, contact us at 800-438-5535.

“Our speed to market saves our customers money because they don’t have to go through weekly or biweekly replenishment or maintain large quantities of inventory to meet their shelf demand. If we can replenish their actual sell-through on a weekly basis, they don’t have to predict or forecast. And then we can eliminate the need to sell-in. No more guessing. And we can eliminate markdown sales for old products.”— Harry Schulman, president and COO, Applica.