How I turned an operation from a loss to +€2.3M P&L, in 2 years
In 2021 I took over as Managing Director of the Dürkopp Adler entity in Romania: 300 employees, €13M revenue, a loss-making operation. Two years later, P&L had grown by €2.3M, and the mandate extended to the plant in the Czech Republic.
What I found
A factory making industrial sewing equipment, with old processes and weak execution discipline: high scrap, reactive maintenance, a culture where deviations from plan went unnoticed. The operation had been losing money for years, and the warning signs in the monthly reports never turned into action on the floor.
What I changed
I started on the shop floor, not in the office. I put in a four-level preventive maintenance standard: operator, shift lead, maintenance team, vendor, which cut breakdown downtime by about 30%. I reduced changeover time (SMED) on the CNC process by 50%. I introduced daily visible indicators for each line, not just in the end-of-month report, so deviations could be caught while they could still be corrected.
I built an independent management team and cascaded objectives with a Hoshin Kanri matrix, from strategy down to every line. I introduced a transparent salary grid for blue-collar workers and a training workshop: every new hire spent three months learning the key processes before taking over the role. I also negotiated real transfer prices with headquarters for the products sold to the group, replacing an inherited historical rate.
The ISO 9001 certification stayed a framework of discipline, not just paperwork for an audit. The results showed up on the floor first: less scrap, fewer stoppages, and only then in the P&L.
The result
In 2 years, the operation's P&L grew by €2.3M, from a loss-making position. The group extended my mandate to the Czech plant: 800 employees, €100M revenue, where I applied the same operating practices already proven in Romania.
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