xP&A in Action: Overcoming Siloes on the Assembly Floor
It’s easy to think of xP&A in terms of dashboards, forecasts, and executive decisions. But the real impact often happens on the ground—where operations meet finance, and where success or failure takes shape. This story from a manufacturing floor shows how breaking siloes, even without advanced systems, can deliver results that capture the essence of xP&A.
From crisis to cooperation
When I stepped in as production coordinator of two assembly lines, the situation was dire. Week after week, the lines were missing production goals. Support functions: maintenance, HR, quality, logistics, were out of sync with day-to-day realities. Operators felt ignored, and maintenance was either delayed or rushed in at the last minute.
Leadership tried to fix this by creating weekly planning meetings with 15–20 representatives across functions. It was progress: for the first time, siloes started to break. But real improvement required daily, not weekly, alignment.
Small changes, big results
That’s where I put my focus. I introduced:
- Daily check-ins with small groups to keep priorities clear and issues visible.
- A shared file tracker, updated in real time, so everyone could monitor assembly line performance and act before problems escalated.
These simple, consistent practices turned talk into action. Preventive maintenance began to appear in the plan. Downtime became an opportunity for quality training or operational excellence projects. The conversations shifted from firefighting to forward-looking.
The results were real:
- Assembly line output jumped from 20 to 52 pieces per hour.
- Turnover dropped by 50%, as employees felt engaged and supported.
- Problems surfaced earlier, with the right people involved in solving them.
This was connected planning in action, before we even called it xP&A.
Translating operations to finance
If a CFO had observed these meetings, they might have noticed that no one talked about money. Instead, the focus was on pieces produced, training sessions delivered, and people retained. That’s the point: xP&A translates financial goals into operational language teams can act on.
On the assembly floor, “money” meant pieces. Aligning everyone around that measure naturally delivered financial results.
Lessons for xP&A adoption
This experience proves that xP&A isn’t just a top-down finance initiative. It’s about:
- Shared visibility: everyone working from the same assumptions.
- Breaking silos: support functions integrated into plans, not pulled in as last-minute fixers.
- Operational alignment: translating strategy into daily goals people can understand and influence.
Even a basic version—powered by a shared spreadsheet and daily check-ins—delivers measurable impact. With modern tools and the right culture, the potential grows exponentially.
Why Planadigm
At Planadigm, we’ve seen time and again that xP&A works best when strategy connects directly to execution. From the CFO’s office to the factory floor, connected planning empowers people to act with confidence and clarity.
We bring both strategic expertise and hands-on operational experience to help organizations achieve this transformation. Whether it’s Finance, HR, Supply Chain, or Operations, our role is to break down silos and make planning work across the business.
The takeaway
xP&A isn’t theory—it’s practice. It happens when cross-functional teams align on goals, speak the same language, and act together. The impact can be dramatic: higher output, lower turnover, and smarter use of resources.
The future of planning is already here—it just needs to be scaled.
The xP&A Playbook
