Tatsumi Kimura-San, a Senior Consultant at Toyota Engineering Corporation and a former Managing Director of Aichi Steel, visited Aktobe Ferroalloys Plant workshops over a period of five days, spoke with employees in various positions, and carefully studied equipment at the Plant to prepare his report. Mr. Kimura announced the outcome and the details of the audit in a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml3OTh0hr1g. He provided important feedback to the Plant’s employees and drew attention to any areas that needed improvement, recommendations which employees helpful and plan to continue implementing.

Mr Kimura said: “I have witnessed employees at Aktobe Ferroalloy Plant’s readiness to implement this production system and increase the efficiency of their production processes. An amazing job has been done at the plant over the last two years. The final assessment of the production system of Aktobe Ferroalloys Plant is 2.11. Frankly speaking, very few enterprises in the world have received such a high rating the first time.”

Arman Yessenzhulov, President of TNC Kazchrome JSC, believes that a good assessment is no reason to relax, saying: “Waiting for the assessment of the production system of the Aktobe Ferroalloys Plant was a very exciting moment for everyone at Kazchrome. I think that this assessment will allow us to correct gaps and develop further. In the face of growing competition, we must not stop now.”

Mr Benedikt Sobotka, ERG’s CEO, said: “The high score awarded to ERG’s Aktobe Ferroalloys Plant is testament to the team’s hard work and dedication. It is fantastic to see that this ranking was awarded by Toyota Production System just two years after the Plant started implementing its production system. ERG holds its business efficiency in high priority. We have audits planned at ERG’s other enterprises as well and look forward to achieving strong results.”

As part of its benchmarking process, Toyota Production System undertakes global comparative analysis of companies and their competitors. Companies are evaluated against 12 criteria, including workplace organisation, labour protection, the Japanese concept of “kaizen” teams, equipment maintenance organisation, and the interaction between engineers and operators, among others.