Quick Response Manufacturing provides Kaak Group with a lot of innovative power

Kaak Group, a company that supplies industrial bakery lines, has applied the principle of Quick Response Manufacturing (QRM). According to Lodewijk van der Borg, CEO of Kaak Group, QRM offers a company many advantages and it is a necessity for the Dutch manufacturing industry to embrace this principle as well.

By: Dimitri Reijerman

Van der Borg will be present during the Machine building event An give presentation about QRM. The Kaak Group develops a large part of the hardware and software for its machines itself. According to Van der Borg, this principle ensures a more efficient workflow and more satisfied customers. But the machine builder achieved the greatest success with the application of QRM.

One of the most important components within the QRM principle are the Quick Response Office Cells. These small, mostly autonomously operating 'cells' operate as mini-companies and have to support themselves. The groups, usually with a size of 3 to 10 people, contain knowledge from multiple disciplines and are better able to deliver small production series.

Sales increases

Thanks to QRM, the Achterhoek-based Kaak Group has quickly managed to increase turnover since it started working in 2008, says Van der Borg: “If you can shorten the lead time to a few weeks, you can much better absorb a drying up flow of orders in a company. We had a lead time of a production process of 70 days. And we reduced that to 10 days.”

“You want to keep your prices up. When your order book is empty, companies sometimes tend to work below cost price to keep their people working in the factory. If you can react very quickly thanks to QRM, you can also keep your prices up.”

The CEO of the Kaak Group continues: “The advantage is that you have a much better competitive position compared to competitors, especially companies that still need 60 to 70 days. The process we talked about then is that all our western competitors in the baking tins field went bankrupt. Then we won the battle.”

In the meantime, various spin-offs have emerged from the QRM principle. In addition, the Kaak Group is responding to new technological developments, including in the field of 3D printing. Van der Borg therefore sees many opportunities in 3D printing: “Ultimately, 3D printing will create increased value by producing spare parts for machines near customers. You need to acquire that knowledge and expertise as quickly as possible. We would never have been able to do that without QRM.”

In his lecture, Van der Borg wants to emphasize that QRM is widely applicable in almost every sector or organization: "I want to indicate that the theory of QRM works for everyone. I also want to indicate that we have to apply QRM in the manufacturing industry to maintain our competitive position. Because I think that the Dutch manufacturing industry is not sufficiently prepared for what the market will look like in ten years. I am not only thinking of developments in geopolitics but also the environment."

Would you like to attend this lecture? Register for free for a visit to the Machine Construction event.