Classic Process Improvement in China

MTG operates around the world. We currently have active projects in the United States, Chile, and China. We would like to take this chance to highlight the great work our team is doing for one of our clients in China. This project is led by Cindy Jin and completed by Sail He and Alex Chen.

Confidentiality is something we pride ourselves on at MTG so we will not share the name of the client. What we can say is that it is a European company that sells lawn equipment.

The client reached out to MTG to improve manufacturing and supply chain operations for its factory in China. The initial request was the following:

“For our factory in China, we are looking for consulting service for improving the production efficiency and capacity, balancing the machining process, improving the production planning, and improving the working process in the workshops and so on.”

Our team engaged with the client and set up a factory assessment to understand how to best help the client achieve their goals. 

What the Assessment Found

MTG staff members in China assessed the factory and found that the factory personnel were eager to improve but lacked the knowledge and experience to make the changes themselves. The team recommended that to achieve the client’s objectives that the improvements should be divided into three initiatives:

Alex Chen would tackle the production efficiency and quality control initiatives while Sail He would focus on the R&D and Supply China.

Progress Made for Quality Control and Production Efficiency 

The project is still on going but, as of this writing (July 9, 2025), but the results so far are impressive. There is a month and a half left in the project and MTG has helped the client achieve all the deliverables for phase 1.
How did Alex Chen achieve these goals? He focused on the fundamentals and changing the company culture to make the changes permanent. He set up and taught the staff how to use visual management to understand production and conduct root cause analysis. He led 5S efforts and streamlined production processes. These efforts increased production efficiency by 30%.

The company did not use data for its production management and did not track quality information. MTG implemented standard operating procedures around data collection and showed the client how to use data to determine the root cause of quality failures. The results were impressive as the rework decreased by 50%. We believe that further improvements are possible before the end of the project.

How Often Should My Company Update? 

The project is still on going but, as of this writing (July 9, 2025), but the results so far are impressive. There is a month and a half left in the project and MTG has helped the client achieve all the deliverables for phase 1.
How did Alex Chen achieve these goals? He focused on the fundamentals and changing the company culture to make the changes permanent. He set up and taught the staff how to use visual management to understand production and conduct root cause analysis. He led 5S efforts and streamlined production processes. These efforts increased production efficiency by 30%.

The company did not use data for its production management and did not track quality information. MTG implemented standard operating procedures around data collection and showed the client how to use data to determine the root cause of quality failures. The results were impressive as the rework decreased by 50%. We believe that further improvements are possible before the end of the project.

The project in China with our European client is classic process improvement. Our China team is saving our client hundreds of thousands of dollars in manufacturing costs and lost inventory without automation or expensive equipment. Process comes first. While not all factories can see the dramatic improvements shown here, we have never visited a manufacturing location in any country that could not benefit from improving their processes.

What can MTG do to help you improve your operations?