Kirby Heat transfer is the major manufacturer of heat transfer units for the air conditioning and refrigeration industry. It is the major manufacturing division of Heatcraft Australia, formerly James N Kirby Pty Ltd, employing some 300 people, with a turnover of $40m.

In mid 2000 Kirby Heat Transfer was experiencing a number of supply chain difficulties in satisfying its customers, both external and internal.

Quality problems continued to occur, even after investigation and corrective action. Productivity was down and workplace 'cultural' problems, particularly with the assimilation of a newly acquired business, were preventing improvements to processes.

Increased competition particularly from imports, were threatening their business. Triton was engaged to facilitate an improvement program, and improvements were made in the key problem areas of unplanned material loss, product damage, packaging standardization and development of a communication strategy.

These projects, together with initiatives in Quotation to Order Fulfilment created significant improvements in quality and the key supply chain areas of customer response time and delivery performance.