The client is a disruptor and innovator in plant-based meat products for the retail and foodservice sectors, moving on an intense growth trajectory. To add capacity it acquired an existing processing site, a mom-and-pop shop, and took on its entire labor and management workforce intact. What came with the building was a culture: one shaped under prior ownership, misaligned with the new owner’s expectations, and sitting significantly below industry standards for operational excellence. Capacity utilization at the site stood at just 46%, a lackluster figure for an operation the client needed to scale.

A Culture Performance Management assessment exposed how deep the gap ran. Shop-floor engagement was minimal, expectations were poorly communicated, and training was inadequate across the board. The leadership team could not function cohesively or apply a single, unified approach to problem solving, so the same issues were attacked from different directions with different assumptions. The acquisition transition layered on top of the client’s own rapid growth, and together they compounded the operational challenges already present at the site.

Underneath the cultural picture sat an operation without structure. There was no Management Operating System and no formalized processes for production, maintenance, logistics, or commercialization. Decisions were made without objective data, which fueled unproductive choices, while labor turnover ran high and leadership, operator, and mechanical skills training was thin. The plant generated massive product waste, mismanaged materials and ingredients for on-demand production, and ran maintenance as a series of emergencies marked by poor supervision, scheduling, and prioritization. Leadership did not need a one-time fix. It needed a system, and the frontline behaviors to run it, that could transition the people, processes, and culture to the client’s own methods and unlock the capacity the site was capable of.

POWERS implemented a full Management Operating System across all four functions that mattered: Production, Maintenance, Warehousing, and Commercialization. To make sure the system changed behavior rather than sitting on a shelf, the team facilitated Workforce Engagement workshops that connected the newly optimized manufacturing processes to how frontline leaders actually led on the floor. Specific process flows were developed for the Batching Area, the Maintenance RFQ, and Commercialization Trials, giving the operation formalized, repeatable ways to do the work it had been improvising.

In parallel, the engagement replaced opinion with objective data. POWERS implemented Downtime Tracking, Yield Tracking, and OEE% so teams could build specific action plans from real numbers instead of guesswork. Managers were equipped with the tools and data to manage their areas to capacity, and the leadership team was trained on proper line balancing to increase it. Processes were developed and implemented to control flow and reduce errors and rework, directly attacking the massive product waste the assessment had surfaced.

Maintenance was rebuilt from an emergency culture into a planned one. Planning and scheduling began assigning work to technicians daily, so mechanics worked prioritized, scheduled jobs rather than reacting to the next breakdown. Taken together, the new operating system, the engaged frontline, the objective data, and the disciplined maintenance routine moved the site off its 46% baseline: capacity utilization improved 26%, OEE rose 14%, and yield climbed 2%, while maintenance overtime fell 18% and mechanic utilization and load both improved.