As part of our 20th anniversary, we spoke with Jos\u00e9 Navarro, General Manager of Herbolario Navarro \u2014 a family-owned company with over 250 years of history, offering organic food, herbal medicine, natural cosmetics, and nutritional supplements, all guided by the values of honesty, closeness, and continuous improvement. He shared how implementing Lean helped them improve operational efficiency, engage all levels of the organization, and take a qualitative leap toward a more agile, sustainable, and customer-focused way of working.
The decision to implement this methodology came during a period of expansion \u2014 in 2019, we had 35 stores, and the need to improve operational efficiency was a top priority to enhance the value we deliver and the satisfaction of both our internal and external customers.<\/p>\n\n
We carried out an organizational diagnosis with the support of SGS Productivity and realized that we needed a structural change. Our goal was not to implement isolated improvements, but to transform the way we worked\u2014engaging all levels of the organization and fostering a culture of continuous improvement. <\/p>\n\n
We started the project in Logistics in 2019, although we had to slow down progress due to the pandemic, as the diagnosis had shown that the most significant improvements could be achieved in these centers. We then continued the implementation in Central Services and eventually extended it to all stores. Today, the methodology is maintained across all areas of the organization. <\/p>\n\n
Ultimately, the decision to implement this methodology was driven by the need to become more competitive, agile, and sustainable in the long term.<\/p>\n\n
With this methodology, we\u2019ve managed to unify the way of working across the different areas of the organization. This has helped us become more efficient and transform the way we think and act\u2014by identifying and reducing waste and non-value-added activities, making data-driven decisions, and encouraging cross-functional teamwork, planning, and focus. <\/p>\n\n
The key moment was the first workshop we conducted in Logistics, focused on a specific company process.<\/p>\n\n
Previously, whenever a problem arose, we acted quickly\u2014\u201cwe were a bit impatient\u201d\u2014without considering all the departments involved. As a result, an improvement in one area could end up worsening others, and the problem wasn\u2019t solved holistically.<\/p>\n\n
The first workshop was the turning point, where we realized that Continuous Improvement wasn\u2019t just a theory, but a participatory, practical, and effective tool.<\/p>\n\n
At first, we had chosen another company, but after meeting SGS PRODUCTIVITY, something made us change our minds\u2014the values they conveyed, their professionalism, honesty, and experience.<\/p>\n\n
It happened during one of the workshops we held to improve the merchandise restocking process in stores. At first, the solution we considered was purchasing new equipment to speed up the work, which implied a significant cost for the organization. However, by applying the Lean methodology and involving the operations team\u2014those who experience the process firsthand\u2014we managed to simplify something complex and use a system tool that allowed us to clearly visualize the actual situation by recording key process data. This way, we found the root cause and solved the problem without the need for any investment. <\/p>\n\n
This experience taught us something fundamental: \u201cthe hardest thing is to make things simple,\u201d and without data, any decision is just a guess. As SGS PRODUCTIVITY says, \u201cwhat isn\u2019t measured can\u2019t be improved.\u201d <\/p>\n\n
The evolution of the team has been significant. At first, there was some resistance to change, as the methodology was perceived as an added workload. However, over time and with visible results, we achieved everyone\u2019s participation and commitment, strengthened ourselves as a team, and improved communication. <\/p>\n\n
In fact, the improvement system is now so deeply integrated that it has its own identity, recognized throughout the organization as “Valor 3.”<\/p>\n\n
A close partnership that combined SGS PRODUCTIVITY\u2019s expertise with the company\u2019s internal knowledge to generate sustainable improvements.
We spoke with Jos\u00e9 Navarro, General Manager of Herbolario Navarro, a family-owned company with over 250 years of history, offering organic food, herbal medicine, natural cosmetics, and nutritional supplements guided by the values of honesty, closeness, and continuous improvement. He shared how the implementation of Lean allowed them to improve operational efficiency, involve all levels of the organization, and take a qualitative leap toward a more agile, sustainable, and customer-focused way of working. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[159,219],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-20th-anniversary","category-interviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leansisproductividad.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/leansisproductividad.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/leansisproductividad.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leansisproductividad.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leansisproductividad.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28740"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/leansisproductividad.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29441,"href":"https:\/\/leansisproductividad.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28740\/revisions\/29441"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leansisproductividad.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leansisproductividad.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leansisproductividad.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leansisproductividad.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}