Project Experience

Manufacturing…Insights Into a Competitor's Productivity Can Come From Public Records

Client Situation
What is the productivity of your competitor? You can review revenues against the average price and get a reasonable idea of the productivity…but how many people have ever thought about the information contained in public records? One client wanted to know how much product volume was being produced at a specific competitor plant. This is just one data point and it can be used to derive other information about your competitor.

Fuld Approach
We contacted OSHA and pulled the latest inspection report, which is a public record. The report gave us a complete breakdown of the plant operations, as is common during an OSHA walk-through. We also viewed the plant and were able to get a sense for the type of air permitting that was required through the stacks on the top of the building and the location of the stacks. We pulled floor layouts and air permit applications as well as other environmental permits. Through those permits, we were able to determine the types of equipment used. We then spoke to suppliers and learned the capacity levels of the various pieces of equipment. By combining all of this data and speaking with client company operations and engineering people, we could build a picture of the plant operations and determine the capacity and efficiency of the plant.

Benefits and Implications
We were able to provide our client with a good idea of the amount of equipment, the number of employees and the processes involved. One public document actually mentioned the volume of a specific line. From this, we then compared the client company efficiencies against the target. We could also determine outsourcing requirements of the competitor from their internal efficiencies. For more information on productivity in the manufacturing industry, contactnbulger@fuld.com.