3SIXTY

Maturity Assessment as a Platform for Future Growth

Background & the Client Challenge

Merenda is a family business with expertise in the manufacture of wood veneer component products for furniture manufacturers worldwide. 

With a reputation for excellence in Veneer Products, Edgebanding and bespoke Surface solutions, Merenda supplies products to 12 countries worldwide.

As a business, Merenda lives by their seven core values and the entire team works to ‘Go Further’ in everything they do.

When Merenda was thinking about its next phase of growth, the Leadership Team recognised the importance of understanding “What’s the baseline? Where are we today as a business?”. 

They recognised the important role an external party can play in doing this, and in giving an independent perspective on what the business was doing well and what were the areas for improvement. 

With this in mind, Merenda brought in 3SIXTY. 

Working in partnership with Merenda’s Leadership Team, we completed a Maturity Assessment focussed on Supply Chain, Operations and Digitalisation.

What We Did

From our initial engagement with Merenda, it was abundantly clear that there was a genuine desire to become the best in their space. 

Working side-by-side with Merenda, and utilising a suite of 3SIXTY Maturity Assessments, we completed a detailed review of end-to-end operations.  

Initial steps involved Merenda completing a detailed self-assessment. 

The second layer of assessment entailed the 3SIXTY team performing an onsite review of existing Supply Chain, Operations and Digitalisation processes.   

Through a series of interviews with internal subject matter experts, process observation and documentation, the 3SIXTY team built up a detailed understanding of Merenda’s business.  

The output of these steps was a full suite of Maturity Assessments and associated insights, coupled with a set of recommended initiatives for Merenda to undertake to deliver on their ambitious growth plans.  

I brought in 3SIXTY because I wanted an independent, expert perspective on where we are today as a business. At Merenda, we want to be the best business we can be. Specifically, I wanted to understand our level of maturity across Supply Chain, Operations and Digitalisation. I wanted to understand this baseline so we could track progress as we continue to grow the business over the coming years. And this is exactly what I got from 3SIXTY. I was impressed by their ability to very quickly understand our business and the environment we operate in, and to make very practical recommendations for improvements.

Ronan Haslette, Managing Director, Merenda

Results

As a business, Merenda demonstrated significant maturity in understanding the role an independent party can play in conducting an assessment of this nature. 

As with any Maturity Assessment, areas for improvement will be identified.  

One of the central principles of Lean is that an organisation is always seeking perfection. And Merenda approached this project in the same spirit.  

Jointly, we completed Maturity Assessments under the headings of Lean Operations, Supply Chain and Digitalisation.  

The results pointed to a highly-mature organisation across all categories.

While Merenda was punching above its weight on several fronts, the overarching desire to be best-in-class meant recommendations for improvement were taken onboard constructively.  

We witnessed a “best-in-class” example of Shop Floor Controls where Merenda had developed a local application which integrated with Android tablets allowing for real-time tracking and communication across the business.  

To find out how 3SIXTY can support your business, contact BrianOBrien@3SIXTY.ie

Brian O’Brien

Partner & Head Of
Growth Strategies

Get in touch to find out how 3SIXTY can help your business deliver its full growth potential.