Black numbers for Koran For the 30th anniversary

What is our client’s business

The family company KORAN, spol. s r.o. from the south of Bohemia has been engaged in custom metalworking for 30 years and sells CNC machines under the MRG brand. It is celebrating success on the Czech market and abroad. In the last year, the company’s managing director Petra Dušáková has devoted to the modernization of operations and improvement of internal processes and quality management.

Client default state

It is the beginning of 2021 and our managing director AleŠ Kuboušek is coming to Koran. His task is clear: to help the new owner and managing director Petra Dušáková with a generational change in the management of the company. At that time, the current owner, managing director and Petra’s dad, Ing. Petr Růžička, Petra’s father and Petra’s father-in-law.

Milestones

How it was done

Process and QMS audit

Every change is based on well-established processes. We have mapped and described the existing processes. This includes an inventory of materials, tools and overall production status. From the beginning, we have been digitizing processes in the office and in production. We are reviewing the setup of supply chain relationships and the order processing system.

LEAN office and management using ISO 9001 principles

Together we describe the systematic development of the staff and help the new Managing Director with further delegation of activities. We are recruiting a new Production Director, Jan Busta, to help with the delegation. Above all, he is reorganising production in a fundamental way. The production process itself, including planning, is being digitised and streamlined. “Among other things, my imagination about the possibilities and use of chip machining is not even half of his experience. And you may have already noticed that my imagination is really big.” says Aleš Kuboušek. As part of LEAN office, we are introducing new digital processes into the office. We place great emphasis on using all the possibilities of ERP and the first collected (digital) data, which can then be easily analyzed. You can’t look for any context in paper records nowadays. And that is the biggest benefit of digitalization. Simple, accessible but above all timely analysis. We are simplifying record keeping, we are starting to increase the use of our internal ERP system. By doing so, we are fundamentally reducing costs and achieving greater efficiency in operations management.

With the great help of Jan Bušta, we are achieving a significant reduction in operating costs. By adjusting production parameters and processes, and especially by detailed tooling control, we are increasing production efficiency by more than 30%. We are addressing the SMED (Single Minute Exchange of Die) issue, i.e. we are introducing a systematic process to minimize time and downtime in production.

Materials engineering and ecology in manufacturing

In the end, we brought in our materials engineering expert as interim manager for Koran. Inputs and materials are scarce commodities in the market and we want to prepare Koran for difficult situations and keep its production competitive even in challenging times. Proper selection of suitable or alternative materials is extremely important in this industry. This includes suppliers.

How the Koran is doing after a year of cooperation

In the spring of 2022, we leave Koran playing with black numbers. We have dramatically reduced production and operating costs. We haven’t had to lay anyone off. On the contrary, Koran is hiring new employees and strengthening production capacity.

Jan Bušta, as the new Production Director, brings new knowledge and plans for further expansion of production to Koran. The company is stable despite the difficult covid period. It has emerged stronger and more competitive.

References from Petra Dušáková: “I’m really glad that AJKA’s boss, Aleš Kuboušek, took the time to meet us. I think it’s very important that we just clicked humanly. At the moment when my dad couldn’t come to the company anymore and it was from one day to the next, I felt a bit lost. Until then, I had been working in the administration of the company and I thought I knew everything about the company. The opposite was true. I honestly didn’t know how to build on my father’s work and how to take on the new role of boss. All I knew was that I wanted to keep running the company.“

Neither fate nor coincidence, but my husband brought AJKA and I together. We got off to a pretty rough start. We analyzed the company from all angles and set a plan of action. We literally worked day and night. And we managed to catch our breath, and thankfully, we’re really thriving.

I’m really glad that we had the privilege to work with AJKA, not only Aleš helped us, but his whole team got involved when needed. Someone once said to me that he would never hire an architect to build a house because he was not going to give someone money to make his own dreams come true with the builder’s money. We had an architect and I was thrilled. It’s similar here. You certainly don’t have to have interims, but it’s a benefit. These are people with a diverse range of knowledge, skills and contacts. For me personally, I see the benefit mainly in opening my eyes and gaining perspective. For the company as a whole, it’s definitely a technology and process shift.

Today, a year apart, I am glad that AJKA and I have connected and I would do it again. It was worth it!