Our operations experts help you define and implement the most impactful projects to improve quality, cost and delivery.
We understand the struggles of balancing rising production costs, time to market, customer demands for superior service and quality and corporate bottom-line requirements. We have expertise in developing “roadmaps” for the future through a unique, cross-functional approach to addressing your operational challenges. By helping you develop a tailor-made optimization strategy, our “roadmap” program aims to extend the life of your facility, improve your customer service and maximize your return on investment.
Our approach involves first gaining a thorough understanding of your operational pressure points both today and on the horizon. We are then uniquely positioned to assign a cross-functional team of seasoned industry-specific experts to work with you on your roadmap. One size does not fit all – we scale our solutions to meet your needs.
Whether you are a small brewery or beverage company concerned with process effectiveness and maximizing use of space within the four walls of your brewery/taproom, a mid-sized facility contemplating a facility expansion and broadening your distribution network, or a large facility wanting to optimize efficiency and productivity on a high-speed packaging line, First Key has the experts to provide practical solutions to help you get there.
We will review your current brewery business and operating procedures in detail, benchmark against others of your scale around the world and provide you with specific, prioritized and actionable recommendations and solutions for improvement – in line with international standards of operation.
Process Improvement Areas:
- Brewery and Beverage Operations, including:
- Efficiency and productivity improvements
- Reducing process losses
- Enhancing in-process and finished product quality
- Capacity optimization – increasing throughput
- Maintenance techniques
- Reducing environmental footprint
- Reducing risks associated with Environment, Health and Safety
- Supply Chain, including:
- Improving brewery forecasting, planning and scheduling
- Demand and supply balancing
- Optimizing flow of materials and finished goods
- Procurement contract(s) review
- Improving inventory management
- Distribution network optimization
- Improving customer delivery performance
- Organizational Structure, including:
- Overall brewery organizational structure improvements
- Duties, skills and responsibilities by position
- Compensation, rewards and recognition
- Commercial Strategy, including:
- Value proposition, competitive positioning, key messages and target market
- Pricing, packaging and beer styles vs. competition and market needs
- Sales structure, size, systems, tools and quality of relationships with key partners
- Sales strategies and tactics by channel to improve effectiveness
- Marketing activities, spend and priorities/initiatives
- Financial Review, including:
- Financial statement review, benchmarking and opportunity assessment
Working with First Key to choose the right strategic priorities for your Process Improvement Roadmap is a great way to gain an edge over your competition. We also have the skills and experience to help you embed a sustainable culture of continuous improvement – “teaching your team to fish where the fish are.” Some companies around the world are reaping fantastic benefits on an ongoing basis because they have set strong performance standards and have trained all employees on how to continuously improve performance so they can attain those higher standards.
