Situation
Melbourne Precast Concrete (MPCC) is a leading Victorian firm specialising in the design, engineering, manufacture, delivery, and installation of high-quality precast concrete panels and structural elements. Operating from a purpose-built facility in South-East Melbourne, MPCC services commercial and industrial builders, known for its craftsmanship, custom finishes, and strict compliance with Australian standards.
With a team of 35 staff spanning tendering, design, manufacturing, and installation, MPCC has experienced strong growth in recent years, fuelled by rising demand for apartment buildings, schools, and commercial projects. The company’s order book was full for the next nine months, creating an opportunity to significantly grow profits — if productivity could be improved.
MPCC’s overall goal was to maintain workforce size while substantially increasing productivity and profitability, ensuring the business could deliver on its growing pipeline without relying excessively on overtime or adding headcount.
Challenge
While the business was well positioned in the market, several operational challenges were holding back performance and profitability:
1. High Overtime Costs
MPCC was spending $100K’s per month on overtime, using it as a short-term solution to meet delivery deadlines. Beyond the cost impact, this had the potential to create safety and efficiency risks in a labour-intensive industry. Management wanted to address the root causes — inaccurate job estimates, scheduling gaps, quality errors, and bottlenecks — to reduce reliance on overtime.
2. Overstretched Management Structure
The factory manager, was directly managing nearly all 35 factory staff — an unsustainable 1:35 management ratio. This caused delays, uneven labour utilisation, and limited the development of team leaders and frontline managers. The business was overly reliant on the factory manager’s presence to run smoothly, creating risk if he were absent or unavailable.
3. Poor Workplace Organisation & Waste
The factory layout and organisation had developed organically and was cluttered with material and equipment, causing wasted motion, time spent searching for tools, and inefficiencies in workflow.
4. Limited Team Engagement
Management suspected a legacy culture of “waiting for the boss to tell me.” For a Lean transformation to succeed, it was crucial to engage teams hands-on and empower them to take ownership of improvements in their areas.
These challenges primarily impacted profitability — through excess labour cost, low yield, and delayed throughput — and risked damaging customer relationships due to missed deadlines.
Action
OE Partners was engaged to conduct a full operational review and implement a Lean transformation program. The work was structured over 12 months and involved analysis, strategy alignment, training, and hands-on implementation support.
1. Current and Future State Value Stream Mapping
OE Partners facilitated a detailed value stream mapping exercise to document current workflows from estimating to installation. Time-and-motion studies and process balancing charts were created to identify bottlenecks, underutilised areas, and cycle time losses.
A future state design was developed to outline a streamlined, high-productivity operation. This included recommendations for role clarification, process improvements, and prioritised initiatives to address the biggest performance gaps.
2. Strategic Alignment
The senior leadership team, led by owner Derek Finocchiaro, was engaged to clarify MPCC’s strategic plan. OE Partners worked with the team to focus on the right types of projects, the most valuable customers, and the key improvement initiatives that would deliver the greatest impact. The outcome was a “business plan on a page” for the company and each department, aligning all stakeholders on priorities.
3. 5S Workplace Organisation
A site-wide 5S program was rolled out as the foundation for operational excellence. This included training, coaching, and hands-on implementation in bite-sized steps, starting with one area at a time.
Visual standards, team audits, and management reviews were established to sustain improvements. Over time, the factory was transformed into a cleaner, safer, and more efficient workplace, reducing wasted motion and improving morale.
4. Focused Process Improvement Projects
OE Partners coached management and frontline staff through several targeted improvement projects:
- Preform Process Bottleneck: Identified as the overall capacity constraint. Quick-changeover trolleys were introduced to eliminate wasted walking and searching for tools, and a sub-assembly process for rebar was developed to reduce congestion at the preform step.
- Concrete Consistency: A structured problem-solving project was conducted to stabilise concrete quality, identifying key variables such as temperature, moisture content, additive levels, and timing. This led to reduced cycle time and increased daily output.
- Quality Improvements: Root cause analysis was applied to high-impact quality issues, with corrective actions implemented to prevent recurrence.
5. Engagement & Coaching
Initial skepticism from frontline management was addressed through side-by-side implementation. Rather than mandating changes, OE Partners worked with staff to sort and clean specific areas, showing tangible improvements one step at a time.
Momentum built as early successes were achieved, and Derek’s firm commitment to the program helped overcome resistance. Over time, detractors either came on board or exited the business, leaving a more aligned, engaged team.
Results
The transformation delivered measurable operational and cultural improvements:
- Reduced Overtime Dependency: By addressing process bottlenecks, stabilising quality, and improving planning, overtime hours — and associated costs — were significantly reduced.
- Increased Productivity: The preform process cycle time was shortened, daily output increased, and jobs flowed more predictably through the plant.
- Quality Improvements: Internal rework rates were reduced, lowering job costs and freeing capacity for new work.
- Organised Workplace: The extensive 5S program improved cleanliness, safety, and flow, creating a professional environment that supported productivity.
- Stronger Team Structure: Management spans of control were addressed, and a pathway was established to develop frontline leaders, reducing dependency on a single manager.
- Improved Employee Engagement: Teams became more proactive in maintaining standards and participating in continuous improvement initiatives.
These outcomes allowed MPCC to deliver more projects with the same workforce, boosting profitability and improving customer satisfaction through more reliable delivery performance.
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Client Perspective
Derek Finocchiaro, owner of MPCC, shared his thoughts on the engagement:
“Really happy with OE Partners’ efforts, communication of results to the team and suggested path to better productivity across all projects — don’t hesitate.”
This feedback underscores both the tangible results and the positive engagement of the workforce in driving lasting change.
Conclusion
The partnership between Melbourne Precast Concrete and OE Partners demonstrates how a structured Lean transformation can turn a full order book into a profitability engine.
By mapping the current state, designing a future state, and implementing practical improvements step by step, MPCC reduced overtime, improved quality, and unlocked additional capacity without adding labour.
Perhaps most importantly, the program built a culture of continuous improvement and gave the leadership team a clear strategic plan, ensuring that MPCC is well positioned to capitalise on strong market demand and grow profitably into the future.
