“The effect of retail price wars is mainly borne by the suppliers”

Retailers are fighting for the favour of the customer. The success of price cutters such as Aldi and Lidl shows that a large proportion of consumers put price first when choosing where to do their grocery shopping. Price cutting is a way of increasing market share to the detriment of the competition. Retailers bear a proportion of the loss resulting from reduced margins, however, a large proportion of the loss is borne by the production chain. Suppliers are put under great pressure by Retail organisations to reduce prices. Cost reduction and increased efficiency are more important than ever. A solution for this problem is often sought by reducing the number of personnel, which achieves nothing but increased working pressure and unmotivated employees. Nothing has improved.

“TPM – The smart way to reduce costs”

The solution is to be found in working smarter, not harder. The improvement program that supports more effective production is called TPM (Total Productive Manufacturing). TPM is an improvement programme aimed at increasing the effectiveness of processes. TPM is not only applicable for production processes, but also for supporting processes such as planning or sales.

TPM in the food industry

TPM consists of two basic principles: “Do not accept losses” and “Ownership”. Losses are all of the activities that do not add value for the customer such as waiting time, defects, stocks and checks . In many traditional companies, the managers are “problem solvers”, operators can come to them with their problems. Ownership means making the shop floor equally responsible for finding the solutions. The final goal is the ideal production line, which always runs at maximum speed without quality losses.

Customer cases

Business contacts