The company has been involved in the provision of consultancy services for manufacturing organisations since its initiation in 1995. The consulting solutions revolve around supporting a wide range of sectors including:
- Electronics
- Contract Manufacturing
- Food
- Beverage Packaging
- Medical Device
- Healthcare
- Media
- Waste Management
- Luxury Goods
- Lighting Controls
- Access Systems
- Drug Manufacturing
Manufacturing client companies have engaged the Leading Edge Group to support a wide range of activities:
- The development of new products, services and markets
- Productivity and efficiency improvements
- Increased capacity and capability to meet current and future customer demand
- Cost reduction targets
- Complete value analysis of the business
- Empowering staff giving them increased accountability and responsibility
Clients included Dell; Benchmark Electronics; RR Donnelly; Stryker; Pfizer; Wyeth; Thomas Crosby Holdings; Veoila; Instant Upright; SELC; Gilead; Hi-Cone; Dairygold; Tipp Coop and Alcon Labs.
Some specific examples of where the company provides expertise in this area include:
- An Irish multinational required the development of a renewed market strategy for the business. In broad terms, the challenge facing the company was the generation of a viable sales and marketing strategy which would identify, and capitalize on key market opportunities.The challenge for the Leading Edge Group was to segment the market from a consumer / end user perspective based on consumer trends rather than the existing production / output emphasis, and to identify where the key opportunities lie. The proposed marketing strategy helped increase the level of innovation within the company, investigated how to provide additional value-add to customers, and outlined the potential for collaboration or alliances with other industry players.
- A luxury goods manufacturer produced and packaged the final product primarily for the international market place and specifically North America. Due to the large variety of product lines and packaging sizes the company faced a continuous problem of not being able to meet customer demand for particular products with a resultant loss in customer sales. The client had significant inventories but not necessarily of the right packaging size. The Leading Edge Group worked with the client to delay the final packaging of the product until it arrived in the distribution center in the USA where a packaging process was added. The client benefits accrued were significantly improved customer satisfaction levels leading to increased sales and a 50% reduction in inventory obsolescence. In addition, the company helped the client to develop “egg box” type packaging for the export product reducing further the airline the freight charges.
- An Irish facility of a large Healthcare multinational was in competition with another of its subsidiaries in the North European region for the manufacturing of a new product launch. The Irish company was perceived as having too many risks with regard to its operations; location; supply chain inadequacies and cost competitiveness. The Leading Edge Group was hired to perform a detailed risk and performance analysis on the Irish operation. All categories of risk and performance were reviewed and compared with the Nordic subsidiary; the Irish plant subsequently won the contract and has continued to expand its operations in the Cork region.
- An Irish food company is increasing production capacity in line with the abolition of the milk quotas in 2015 and resultant increased sales opportunities. The goal is to increase capacity by a certain % without any investment in infrastructure and capital equipment. The Leading Edge Group is currently working with this business to achieve the increased capacity over a 24 month period. A number of projects will be undertaken using a variety of process improvement techniques such as SMED, OEE, Line Balancing and design re-layouts in order to achieve targets.
For information on expertise in this area click here.
