Kölner Medienfabrik AG (Cologne media factory)

2013 – The Cologne media factory is a medium-sized company which resulted from a merger of a printing, a high tech printing company and a modern studio for photography. This ‘one company’ now can supply all media products from a printed brochure to 360-degree view of a car interior on CD-ROM (IPIX technology).
The company has a consultancy project done through GIB (Gesellschaft für Innovative Beschäftigungsfördering, NRW) and funded by the Ministry of Labour, Health and Social Affairs in North Rhine Westphalia in Germany and the European Social Fund. The actual consult was done by: Gaus media education policy consulting ltd. The deployment of the consultancy project was to discover which potential not yet is exploited.

Approach
On the basis of the ‘potential analysis’, a number of measures were taken, resp. planned:

• All product and order information is available for all employees at any time via the computer,
• The staff has got latitude (time) to try innovations,
• In quiet periods, internal job rotation is applied so that more and more employees have insight in a greater part of the process and are able to do that job,
• A new technique “Computer to Plate" (CTP) in which the Cologne company is world leader in the printing process, saves a whole step in the process: making a movie before material can be put on record. The new technique makes it possible to convert the image directly from the computer on plate. As proposed by the consulting firm, the company is going to offer  this as a service to other printers.

Results
One of the directors mentions the following results: the staff take more responsibility, quality is improved, there is greater flexibility, the staff is better qualified, employees work better together and there is a new service offerings.

Reference:

More information about the GIB program you can find via: https://www.gib.nrw.de/themen/arbeitsgestaltung-und-sicherung/potentialberatung

 an article about this case can be found via the following link: https://www.gib.nrw.de/service/downloads/BgP_MF_Koeln_en.pdf.

Themes: Dynamic management and leadership, Innovation and innovation capacity, SMEs, Talent development

Sector: Creative Industry

Source: Case

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