Innovative leadership
SKF
The client:
SKF is a Swedish bearing and seal manufacturing company employing more than 44,000 people in more than 100 manufacturing plants.
The task:
Ajay Naik, head of SKF’s Gothenburg Plant, received a European Quality Leader (EQL) award in September for the novel way in which he turned around a struggling factory. What can Naik’s techniques teach us about manufacturing’s lean and digital future?
Kent Nordic was appointed to work with SKF by Stockholm-based content agency Appelberg.
The role:
Content writing
Full publication at skf.com. Read a snippet:
Manufacturing’s lean and digital future
When Ajay Naik moved from India to Sweden in 2017 to run SKF’s Gothenburg factory, the plant was facing challenges on multiple fronts.
An unprecedented surge in global demand had arrived just as an overhaul of the factory’s IT systems was in progress. By the summer, orders were “piling up” and acute staffing shortages had led to a “frantic” search for temporary staff.
“We just weren’t prepared,” Naik, says. “We could cope in normal conditions with incremental increases in demand, but the market rose steeply just as we were dealing with internal problems. It was the perfect storm.”
Naik had worked at SKF in India for thirty years and had experience navigating challenges in the manufacturing process. Utilising his experience, he installed a crisis manager, appointed a supply chain expert and set up a “war room” in an attempt to stabilise the situation.