Company
LEGO Group (LEGO) is a family-owned company based in Billund, Denmark and best known for the manufacture of LEGO-brand toys. The company was founded in 1932 by Ole Kirk Christiansen and is based on the iconic LEGO® brick. Today, LEGO is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of play materials for children – committed to children’s creative development and learning.
Key figures
- 17,385 employees worldwide (2018)
- Established in 1932 by the Kirk Christiansen family
- Head office: Billund, Denmark
- Total revenue of DKK 36,4 b (2018)
The pilot project
Based on a planning assessment, E&M wants to develop a roadmap, bridging the gap between current and best-in-class capabilities, while mitigating ongoing challenges, which in the end will lead to better planning and thus delivery service of new moulds to production.
This project purpose defines the core project deliverables as:
- Assessment of current E&M supply chain planning capabilities, processes and applied technologies.
- Catalogue of improvement areas in the E&M supply chain planning processes and tools.
- Prioritisation of initiatives based on impact and implementation ease, leading to a high-level roadmap of initiatives to improve planning capability building competencies, processes and technologies/IT tools.
Project results
- Achieved: Planning assessment
- Achieved: Technology assessment
- Achieved: Improvement catalogue
An improvement catalogue containing 24 improvement initiatives was delivered - Achieved: New capacity model concept suggestions
Three prototypes supporting the capacity concept were produced - Achieved: Impact/effort definitions (quick wins identified)
The 24 improvement initiatives were all ranked based on impact/effort by the core team - Achieved: Roadmap
A roadmap spanning the next 12 months including six sprints was developed
Local Implementation
The three core elements of the Half Double Methodology: Impact, Flow and Leadership were specifically tailored to fit the project and the E&M organization and came to life in practice through the following initiatives.
Impact case and impact solution design
The first phase of the project was used for defining improvement initiatives, and further ranking these initiatives based on the impact/effort scale to identify quick wins. Furthermore, a high emphasis on engaging the key stakeholders was prioritized in the impact solution design. This was, for example, accomplished by hosting a solution hypothesis workshop where all the key stakeholders participated. This session worked well as a way of communicating the process and challenges which the core team had identified in the process. This enabled the key stakeholders to understand and discuss important aspects of the project.
Pulse checks
The pulse check was applied to gain insight into the thoughts of the core team members and gain insight for further improvements. The pulse check was performed after a workshop with a follow-up meeting discussing the feedback. The main learning was that the pulse check should have been applied more frequently, thereby giving the core team a better opportunity to address all the challenges occurring in the project.
Co-location design to support intensity: The core team consisted of five people who had 40% of their time allocated to work on the project. During the project, the core team had a dedicated project room available to create the appropriate working conditions for high intensity work. The co-location allowed problems to be solved faster and more efficiently.
Rhythm in key events: A fixed project heartbeat and rhythm was created by having a report-in and a report-out every week of the project. In the report-in sessions, the core team would discuss the week's tasks applying visual planning. The report-out sessions were used as a platform to communicate the progress of the project and to discuss the upcoming weeks’ tasks.
Visual planning and project visuals
A visual plan was created and updated throughout the project allowing the project team and other stakeholders to monitor the progress continuously. Furthermore, the visual plan allowed the project participants and project leader to identify bottlenecks and take corrective action.
Active ownership and collaborative leadership behavior
The project owner participated in all the key workshops and was involved throughout the project. A reflection made by both the core team and the project owner was that the project owner should be involved proactively even further from the beginning of the project, especially during the workdays. It is believed that this would have benefitted the project further.
Reflective and adaptive behavior: The reflective and adaptive mindset was also in focus during the project. The reflective mindset was especially employed during review sessions with key stakeholders where the solution initiatives identified were discussed. The core team was focused on adopting the mindset of accepting the input from the stakeholders and seeing it as an opportunity to make the project even better. This concept helped the core team tailor the solutions to tackle the challenges experienced in E&M.
A story from the LEGO Group project
Workshops with key stakeholders: The project team expressed that the various workshops facilitated with key stakeholders were insightful and an important part of the success of the project. The purpose of the workshops was to involve the key stakeholders continuously but also to utilize their key knowledge within the area of planning. The workshops were organized in an interactive manner with a focus on visualization by means of posters. For instance, an issue tree was created using cardboard cards that were stuck on the wall.
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