We spoke with Juan José Navarro, Managing Director of TMD Friction Valencia, a benchmark plant within the group for deliveries, quality, and safety.
TMD Friction has been a leading company in brake friction technology since 1878, in both original equipment and aftermarket for automotive and motorsport. It operates in 12 countries, with 4 R&D centers and 11 production plants, and its vision is to be a key enabler of safe and sustainable mobility.
Juan José tells us how the Kaizen philosophy has been with them since the 1990s, consolidating a culture of continuous improvement based on people’s commitment, customer focus, and consistency in doing things well,
What made you decide to implement Lean in your company?
I became familiar with Kaizen back in the 1990s, when I visited Japan and saw Quality Circles, Kanban systems, and Autonomous Groups at Toyota and many other companies. From that moment, I realized it wasn’t just the best method for motivation and management—it was the only one that could truly guarantee business success.
So, shortly after joining the TMD group in the early 2000s, I began implementing Continuous Improvement in my plants. At the time, the group was also strongly promoting Six Sigma and had hired an American consultancy, TBM Consulting, to support the Kaizen rollout across all its plants.
What results have you achieved through the implementation of Lean?
Currently, our Valencia plant leads the group in on-time deliveries (over 15 years delivering at 100%), customer rejections (0–1 ppm for many years), and zero lost-time accidents (for 9 years). We manufacture brake lining for drum brakes and hold a market share of over 80%.
We have no staff turnover (the average seniority is 20 years). Nearly the entire workforce is aligned with the customer—both internal and external—to improve processes and results every day. We are a very small company within our group, but we strive for excellence every single day.
What was the key moment or highlight of the project?
The truth is, there wasn’t a single “click” moment. This isn’t about one-off events but rather about consistent work over years, always in the same direction—and only then do you start to see sustained results, increased market share, and overall business development.
In the beginning, it’s much harder because resistance to change is a major obstacle—misaligned supervisors, operators who think they know everything, lack of training in Lean techniques, and so on. These are things you have to manage gradually. But if you stay focused, you eventually succeed in aligning the entire company in the right direction.
Why did you choose SGS PRODUCTIVITY?
At the beginning, we only had references from SGS PRODUCTIVITY’s clients. I had heard that a group of former Faurecia employees—known for their strong reputation—was doing a good job.
SGS PRODUCTIVITY made us an offer we couldn’t refuse: they would only charge us based on actual savings from productivity improvements. If they didn’t manage to reduce costs, they wouldn’t get paid. You can only propose something like that when you’re truly confident that your work as a consultant will deliver clear benefits for the client. So, we agreed on some key indicators and got started.
Can you share an anecdote you’ve experienced with SGS Productivity?
One interesting thing is that the so-called panacea for improving productivity actually became one of our biggest obstacles in implementing Kaizen: the famous productivity bonuses. The more parts an operator produces, the more they earn. It sounds great in theory, but soon after launching it, operators found ways to keep earning the bonus even when output dropped—mainly because the reasons for the drop were “not attributable to the operator”: lack of materials, power outages, unprepared tooling, etc.
In the end, we had to eliminate the productivity bonus to move forward with continuous improvement. And of course, we made it permanent, as it was the only viable way. That’s when we were really able to take off.
In what ways has your team evolved over the course of the project?
Little by little, we saw how people started to “catch on” to the new philosophy. Of course, there’s always a small group of people who can’t be motivated—no problem, we kept moving forward. When the crisis hit and we had to reduce staff, those were naturally the people who left—not the cheapest to lay off, but the ones least aligned with the new philosophy.
What we absolutely never accepted was having people in leadership positions who weren’t aligned, because that can ruin the entire implementation. In the end, everyone understands what the company’s Kaizen philosophy is and that the most important thing is the customer—internal (with HSE always the top priority) and external.
If you had to define your collaboration with SGS Productivity in one sentence… what would it be?
SGS PRODUCTIVITY is not a desk-and-PowerPoint consultancy—they roll up their sleeves and work alongside you on the shop floor until the goal is achieved.