-: We have this incredible aspiration at Bayer
to not only provide the perfect product to our consumers,
to have it always available, but to also make it affordable.
-: And that can only be done if you are resilient,
if you are agile,
and that you also understand why you're doing this.
-: So first, we did a deep analysis about our data,
and we made a baseline doing a benchmark
with other companies comparable to us here.
-: And then we used those data and the comparison
to figure out which areas we could actually improve on.
-: So after we've closed the data analysis phase,
we performed several workshops directly on the shop floor,
and as a result of these workshops,
we developed several ideas how to improve OE and run time,
and these are also the main points
that we follow up now.
-: The main improvement area we identified is something
that is very important for me as a head of production,
which is the constant flow of product through the plant,
and during our journey, we identified a couple
of bottlenecks and figured out ways
on how to improve around them,
and we even went so far as to reconsider our batch sizes
to improve flow, which I think is very impressive.
-: As of day one, BCG team was on the ground,
and the team was with us on the floor together
with operators, with the overalls,
and that created a big difference, in my opinion.
-: What I really like is there was no difference
between a person from BCG or our own team.
It was just one team.
It was just one goal and one approach,
and at the end, all fact based,
all data-driven solutions that came out,
and we understood now where we need to be
to become the best consumer health company.
-: As a result of the work, we have generated, yes,
some efficiency improvements, 10 to 15%,
but more importantly, we have also converted those things
into behaviors, into systemic improvements that we have
to take it to our program and make it applicable
in all the other sites in all the other lines.
-: The impact for Bitterfeld was not only
that we were able to really find the levers
and to deliver the savings in the future,
but we also learned to really question our work in general,
so how we work at the site, and this is really
what has a really, really big impact on how we see ourself
and how we see that we can be much more efficient
than we have been in the past.
-: And we also showed how we
can then make ourselves enabled to drive it forward.
So we are not now depending on someone.
We learned how to take it from there
and drive it ourselves in all parts of our business.
-: And the other element, of course,
that I'm really much proud of is also to showcase
within our own organization at Bayer how we are doing it
and what was the resultant so that we
can also scale it in that perspective.
-: For us, what is next is we want to really work
with our organization to make sure that we grow
in a continuous improvement mindset,
that we grow our people,
and that we make this approach sustainable.