Productivity Programs

Wacker Chemie AG - Sustainability Report 2015/16

High productivity throughout the supply chain is a key to WACKER’s success. WACKER boosts productivity along the entire supply chain via its program. Our goal is to continue reducing specific operating costs every year. WOS results are regularly reported to the Executive Board.

2015 and 2016 saw the implementation of more than 1,000 projects at our operational business and corporate departments. Some 700 of these concerned operations, with the corporate departments accounting for 300. The focus of WOS was on improving:

  • Plant utilization levels
  • Specific energy consumption
  • Raw-material yields
  • Labor productivity
  • Specific maintenance costs, and reducing third-party contracting

Over the two-year reporting period, labor productivity improved by more than 6 percent across all WACKER plants. Specific energy consumption fell within operations by an average of just under 3 percent and specific maintenance costs dropped by around 7 percent. The WOS measures implemented over this two-year period yielded a business value contribution of some €260 million.

Over the past two years, our WOS Academy (founded in 2009) trained just under 200 employees in the application of new productivity methods, such as Six Sigma. In addition to this training, we carried out projects aimed at reducing specific costs.

Wacker Operating System (WOS)
The “Wacker Operating System” (WOS) program bundles, promotes and processes corporate projects for systematic process improvement. It is the basis for a groupwide improvement initiative by WACKER.