Corticeira Amorim and Kaizen create consultancy firm to digitalise the industry
Kaizen Tech is an internal project within the cork company and starts with a team of 20 engineers.
When it needed to change its industrial base management information collection system, Corticeira Amorim realised that there was no suitable solution to the problem on the market and so formed a team internally to develop the necessary skills to implement the MES (Manufacturing Execution System) software it wanted.
“After intensive market research, we realised that TrakSYS, the selected MES, was the software that best met Corticeira Amorim’s needs. Unfortunately, we could find no one who could implement this system, so it was necessary to set up an internal team,” reports António Rios de Amorim, Chairman and CEO of Corticeira Amorim.
To leverage this acquired knowledge, the Portuguese company that is trying to collect debts in Russia has teamed up with the Kaizen Institute – a multinational that has had offices in Porto and Lisbon since 1999 and with whom it has collaborated on other projects for over 15 years – to set up a consultancy company. It will support national factories to “leverage” digital transformation, ensuring the transition to Industry 4.0 sustained by information obtained from productive areas in real time.
Kaizen Tech, as this new consultancy company was named, offers solutions in functional analysis and requirements gathering, implementation and project management, support and system evolution. Installed in Vila Nova de Gaia, it starts with a team of 20 engineers and estimates a “significant growth” of the team in the next three years to respond to an increase in annual activity of around 30%.
“With MES, companies will have access to real-time data, becoming better able to find the root causes of their problems and thus react to deviations, being much more prepared to do Kaizen,” says Alberto Bastos, partner and managing director of the Kaizen Institute Western Europe, quoted in a statement.
Founded in 1870 and headquartered in Santa Maria da Feira, Corticeira Amorim is the largest cork transformation group in the world.
