Global Automotive Supplier — Empowered Ownership
A global automotive supplier, giving plant managers the decision room they already had the judgement for.
Context
A global automotive supplier whose plant managers were highly experienced and highly constrained. The central operations function set the parameters tightly. Plant-level variability — much of it reflecting genuine local conditions — had to be fought through exception requests.
Challenge
The central controls had been built in a different era, when plant variability was a quality risk. They had kept quality steady and silently crushed the plants' ability to respond to shifts in local demand, supplier reliability, and labour markets.
Approach
We separated the parameters where central standardisation genuinely added value from the ones where it was costing agility without a safety payoff. The latter were devolved — with clear reporting back on outcomes rather than on compliance.
What shifted
Plant responsiveness improved. Central operations shifted from policing to supporting, which also improved the signal they got from the plants on real issues worth central intervention.
What shifted: central controls stopped being a cost of safety the plants had already outgrown.
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