The project at Schleifenbauer is perfect for me. I once read the quote “You can’t manage what you don’t measure”. My background in Industrial Engineering & Management taught me that “to measure is to know”. I developed Audit & Improve (A&I) based on this principle, among other things. 

My strengths are my analytical skills and my soft skills, such as dealing with people and creating an environment where people are open to change. Thanks to the A&I approach, we stick to the facts (using measurement). Employee input is essential. They get involved in the A&I process by sharing what they think could be improved. This, over time, creates support for improvements. 

Furthermore, my experience in the quality field is very valuable, as this was originally Schleifenbauer’s strongest need. From the point of view of quality, we are now also tackling the processes of logistics, operations and purchasing. The approach here has already resulted in a different operations structure and the addition of visual management at various process steps.

Schleifenbauer is a manufacturer of Power Distribution Units (PDUs), based in Den Bosch. Their strength is the production of custom-configured PDUs, with a delivery time of several weeks. Scaling up the production capacity due to the increasing demand from existing customers and the extra demand from new customers required a broad project approach in which quality is of paramount importance.

With the Audit & Improve project approach of Nobleo Manufacturing, a menu of improvement opportunities was presented after the first scan and audit. After the first round of selecting the improvement potentials, the first improvement cycle started. After realizing the promised results at the end of an improvement cycle, the menu was put back on the table. This way, Nobleo Manufacturing and Schleifenbauer work closely together to realize cycles of improvements for production and logistics, customer support, quality and the quality management system.