Ironwood Industries: Workforce Planning for Manufacturing Success

The Challenge

Ironwood Industries, a mid-sized manufacturing company, faced significant challenges in managing growth and controlling costs. They needed a comprehensive 3-year workforce plan to meet their production and financial goals. Additionally, they sought to increase manufacturing capacity while maintaining tight control over labor costs, all within the context of the complex post-COVID business environment.

The Solution

Ironwood Industries discovered LYTIQS as a potential solution to their workforce planning needs. After evaluating other options, they chose LYTIQS due to its ability to integrate HR, financial, and operational data seamlessly. This decision was influenced by the need for a data-driven strategy to optimize workforce management. 'LYTIQS enabled us to rapidly align our workforce strategies with our operational goals, delivering results in record time,' said the HR Director of Ironwood Industries. With LYTIQS, Ironwood Industries could forecast costs, automate reporting, and develop a balanced approach between temporary labor and overtime.

The Results

The implementation of LYTIQS led to impressive results for Ironwood Industries. They achieved a more efficient workforce cost structure, increasing their team size by 10% at nearly the same cost as the original workforce. The required manufacturing productivity increase per Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) was initially set at 13.8% but was able to be reduced to 4%. Additionally, decision-making time was cut down to under 5 minutes because of the availability of data. These metrics illustrate the substantial impact LYTIQS had on Ironwood Industries' operational efficiency and cost management.