About
Who runs Northbridge, why it was started, and what the work looks like on a shop floor.
Northbridge
Started by a plant manager, not a consultancy
Northbridge Advisory was founded in 2016 by Erik Lindqvist, a former plant manager.
He had spent his career on shop floors and kept meeting small manufacturers who needed the operations help the large plants paid for, but could not find anyone who had actually run a plant. The firm was started to close that gap.
A changeover is the time between the last good part of one run and the first good part of the next, and most of it is waiting, walking and searching, not machine time. A 40-person metal shop cut changeover time by half in eight weeks. A bakery reduced waste with a simple daily production board, filled in at the machines rather than typed up at the end of the week.
- 01
At the machines
We watch the work where it happens, because the delays are visible there and nowhere else.
- 02
One price, one scope
The engagement is written down and agreed before it starts.