Today we had a tour to Billund, to visit the production site of LEGO. First Aksel Krabbe Nielsen welcomed us and gave us an overview over the company, including the history, the core values, for example Imagination, Creativity, Fun and Learning, and some figures. The family owned company was founded in 1932 and only since the 2nd generation they produce the nowadays known bricks with the clutch power, which gives them the ability to stick together...
Today LEGO is situated in more than 150 countries and employs around 10.000 people.
In former days, LEGO had 13.000 different bricks, but as it was way too complicated, they reduced to 7300. Their vision and mission is very important for them and leads to their spirit, which says that only the best is good enough.
The change in technology also changed the idea of toys. Kids more and more want to play with computers, so it´s the task to attract their target group, which are the boys aged 5 and 9 years.
LEGO works close together with the film industry, for example producing Star Wars and Harry Potter figures is a big success. Of course they have to pay for these rights, but on the other hand they earn money with selling the rights to produce watches or t-shirts. So the costs are evened out by inbound and at the same time outbound licensing.
Finally, still in the first presentation, we got information about the “growth strategy 2015”, which says they want to reach a growth in the USA and Russia, seed emerging markets as China, create new concepts and open more shops. Also they want to produce more “girls products”, as in the moment girls don´t belong to their target group.
After that we had a second presentation of a senior manager Hans Læssøe who divided the company in his part in 3 sections. First part was the Market & Position, which was explained by the Porter Model of 5 forces. The suppliers are on the one hand the sellers of the commodities, like plastic and boxes. On the other hand, and the more difficult ones, are the sellers of the components, for example metal parts of some themes. Also belonging to the Model, are the buyers. Their customers are not the consumers directly, but the retailers like Walmart and amazon.
Second part was about history & strategy and the last part about key processes. In the past LEGO tried to gain new customers in different ways. Some of them didn´t work out as expected.
Normally LEGO has 20 % of annual sales in the 3 weeks before Christmas and 50% in the two month before. They try to keep the production on one level during the full year, not to have to produce way more in the peak time.
Parts of their production are running 24/7 365 a year.
As their producing near the customer and not as 80% of the toy industry just producing in China, LEGO is very flexible to changes in demand. Also as a big part of every package consist of basic bricks, it´s easy for them to change the production process.
In the end we got a tour through the production, which was focused on the moulding process. In this process, granulate is heated up and pressed into brick forms. Also we saw the production of the minimen. Nearly all processes are totally automatic.
We thank LEGO for the great day. It was nice to see how the toys, we used to play with, are produced. We felt really welcomed and hope, the next semesters will have the chance to see that as well.
After arriving back in Odense, the students worked for their presentations and term papers for a few hours.
After arriving back in Odense, the students worked for their presentations and term papers for a few hours.
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