Your turnaround gets run from the shop floor, not a slide deck.
Inflection Works is an embedded, on-site operational turnaround practice for underperforming production plants. Lasting change starts with culture, not interim management — the work is about mentoring your leadership team in the Toyota Way, building the discipline and habits that carry the plant to operational excellence.
We will assess the situation and build the baseline as a team.
Day one of a fixed, four-phase engagement.
This is where the hard work happens. This is the cultural change.
Snapshot from partway through Phase 2.
We are bringing it home into a new, re-defined culture of excellence.
Consultant steps back as the site team leads.
We will close and sustain what we have gained.
Engagement closes with the new system running on its own.
Every engagement runs through one framework
No two plants have the same problems, but the underlying structure never changes. Three elements have to move together — leaning on only one of them is why most improvement efforts stall out.
Management Commitment
Leadership sets the KPIs, defends them in the room, and cascades the goals down to the floor — and keeps standing behind the plan once it gets uncomfortable.
Tools
Lean and TPS-based tools — 5S, Standard Work, SMED, Kaizen events — applied against the specific bottlenecks on your line, not run as a generic playbook.
People
The change only holds if the people on the floor own it. A foxes-and-rabbits coaching approach separates genuine change agents from lip service, early.
A fixed, four-phase engagement
The same structure runs at every site. It's repeatable on purpose — consistency is what makes the methodology transferable to your team, not a limitation on it.
Discovery
A three-dimensional evaluation of the current situation.
- Technical — KPI analysis, customer feedback, and senior management input.
- Cultural — the local culture and leadership environment.
- Shop floor — process observation and stakeholder conversations.
Onsite Transformation
On-site support to stabilize and structure the operation.
- Shop floor management — establish a strong shop floor management system.
- Kaizen toolbox — introduce and execute a Kaizen toolbox.
- Leadership mentoring — personal mentoring for leadership personnel.
Transition
Begins once a stable operations environment is established — the handover from consultant to local leadership.
- Shop floor management — the system is handed to local leaders.
- Kaizen activity — facilitated by local personnel.
- Coaching — expanded to the next leadership level within the facility.
Closing
A reflection on the prior phases and an organized plan for the local team to execute after the engagement ends.
- Technical reflection — a formal review based on technical data and KPIs.
- Leadership culture — an assessment of the leadership culture in the operation.
- Continuation plan — a tangible plan for the continued work locally.
One consultant. On-site. Until it holds.
Run by Bjoern Meyer
Bjoern brings 25 years as an operations executive across the automotive, building products, and furniture industries — inside family-owned businesses, publicly traded companies, and private equity portfolios. He's run operations across Europe, North and South America, and Asia, leading operational turnarounds, plant network restructuring, Lean implementations, plant startups, and M&A integrations.
Inflection Works exists because that pattern repeats everywhere: real change doesn't come from a strategy deck — it comes from mentoring the leadership team, on the floor, until the Toyota Way becomes how the plant actually runs. That's the discipline behind every engagement — not interim management, but the culture shift that carries a plant to operational excellence long after he's gone.
Ready to talk about your plant?
A first conversation is a straightforward, no-pressure look at what's going on at your site and whether an embedded turnaround is the right fit. If it isn't, you'll hear that too. Fill out the form below and it'll go straight to Bjoern's inbox.