Expert article · Start-up & plant construction · 2 min read
Aircraft take off against the wind: greenfield projects in difficult cultures
Dr. Klaus-Jürgen Wolf, Founder & Managing Partner
In some countries a large greenfield project is as hard as pitching a tent in a storm. It can still be done, with the right team.
In many cultures lean is still almost a foreign word. Market-economy structures arrived there decades later than in the USA, Japan or Central Europe. Large greenfield projects are feasible in such countries, but with considerable inefficiency and above-average cost and time.
High-tech manufacturing makes it doubly hard. Strict defect tolerances require several attempts before quality is right for good. That is rarely down to the employees or the owner, but to a working and bureaucratic culture that reinvents itself every day in many organisations.
Extra engines
Aircraft do not take off with the wind, but against it. To make such projects succeed, you need cultural understanding and many years of international experience on top of expertise, and where necessary an expat team. It works like extra engines that lift a heavy aircraft into the wind. This team has to be resilient to setbacks.
That is the only way to get the workforce to think differently and win at least a majority over to lean and efficiency. Goals are then met as well as necessary, not as well as possible.
- Agile project management gives the teams pragmatic orientation every day.
- A professional local project manager is a must, not a nice-to-have.
With this approach, a greenfield plant with 250 employees reached series production after 18 months, with a defect rate of at most 3.5 per cent.