Creating top tier, cost efficient breweries across five continents

Business Challenge

InBev is the leading global brewer by volume and the third-largest selling beer brand in the world. In 2004, InBev launched the global strategic initiative: Voyager, with world-class efficiency as one of the four pillars.

World-class efficiency would primarily be driven by a Voyager Plant Optimization (VPO) Program to establish “The InBev Way of Working”, to be consistently applied to all global operations.

Hitachi Consulting was selected to partner with InBev in shaping and executing the VPO program and worked closely with global and regional managers to develop its ambition and management, training and support structures.

At the very start, two pilot breweries were selected to test the program’s approach, ensuring rapid delivery of first results to support the global rollout. Consequently two more test breweries were chosen to make final adjustments to “The InBev Way Of Working”, and prepare the InBev employees for the challenge of a global rollout.

The VPO project teams worked with managers and employees on every site, where they conducted gap assessments, gauged improvement potential, developed and executed implementation plans. As such, the teams became an integral part of the site’s management team.

This Closework® approach fostered local buy-in, promoted in-depth knowledge transfer, demonstrated that VPO could span InBev’s diverse cultures, and developed the skills and confidence needed to independently rollout VPO on a global scale.