LINDT & SPRÜNGLI
AACHEN PLANT
COMPANY PROFILE

1 Organization Profile
In 1845 in Zürich - Switzerland, a confectioner named David Sprüngli and his apprentice son Rudolf,
decided to produce chocolate. Under the influence of a new Italian trend, they started to make solid, rather
than liquid, chocolate. In the wealthy Zürich society, this became very popular and consequently
production was transferred to a new factory in Horgen, on the Zürich Lake. In 1862, Rudolf took the helmof the company and boosted the business, opening a new confectioner shop and moving the factory backto Zurich.

With six production sites in Europe, six in the USA and distribution and sales companies on four continents,
Lindt & Sprüngli is recognized as a market leader in the premium quality chocolate business, offering alarge selection of products in more than 120 countries around the world. After more than 165 years, Lindt& Sprüngli has become known as one of the most innovative and creative premium chocolate companies.
In 1965, L&S built its own distribution system in Germany, employing 130 sales representatives within adecade. In 1986, the Monheim company was dissolved, and the Chocoladefabriken Lindt & Sprüngli
GmbH (Lindt Germany, L&S Germany) was founded in Aachen. L&S Germany purchased a plant in
Süsterfeldstraße, Aachen in 1988, and added a logistics section in 2012.

Today, Lindt Germany chocolate produced in Aachen is distributed worldwide and is known for its highquality, with "Made in Aachen" being a seal of excellence across the globe. Aachen, with its cutting-edge
research infrastructure at North Rhine-Westphalia Technical University of Aachen, is considered one of
the most forward-thinking locations in Germany.
The Aachen production plant is L&S company's largest and represents its constant growth, as demonstrated
by its rising revenue and steady site development.

Our products can be classified in four main families:

Plant Organization
Lindt & Sprüngli Germany is led by CEO Michal Spiller, who provides the company with leadership andguidance. The operations department, responsible for maintaining the high quality standards of ourproducts and ensuring timely delivery both domestically and internationally, is overseen by Thomas
Scheidgen. Each operations department has a team of experienced employees who work diligently to ensurethat our processes are efficient and effective. At Lindt, we take great pride in our commitment to excellence,delivering exceptional products that are renowned worldwide.

2.

Milestone on the Journey of Manufacturing Excellence

In October 2012, Lindt Group decided to launch a global TPM approach in the manufacturing facilities
called Lindt Performance Way (LPW). Focus was initially set on the foundations: 5S and PerformanceControl Systems (PCS).

Lindt Germany was motivated by several factors:•Volume Growth. This rapid and drastic increase in volume, and projected future growth creates
opportunities to improve the existing processes.

•Expansion of the product mix. We a lot of new products each year. This amount of new products
has to be managed on existing lines, therefore we need to find the most efficient way to produce.

•Difficult to compare between Lindt plants. With many international companies within the Lindt
organization, it was difficult to compare progress and processes as there were different KPIs
measured. Introducing the TPM approach, allowed for the standardization of KPIs and easiercomparison from plant to plant. It is also a great opportunity to share best practice and learn fromeach other.

•The pressure on cost is increasing continuously. By implementing TPM, losses were deployedand attacked. Savings were achieved and cost reduced.

•Increased business complexity. Customers expected more customization, higher quality as wellas improved time to market, and higher service levels. To achieve this, TPM methodology became
necessary to attack losses in delivery and performance and improve our product quality.

Collaboration in the plant between the different departments such as R&D and F&C was significantlyimproved. Many colleagues are applying the concepts of continuous improvement and zero loss. In the last
two years, we have made very good progress in our deployments. We can show the OEE including all loss
categories per plant and machine on product level, using Power BI.
LPW has already developed several approaches so that we can take the employees along with us andmotivate them to take part in the improvement teams of quick kaizen, standard kaizen or major kaizen
teams. And we trained them to write TAG cards, if something is not in the basic condition.

3. Benefits Achieved
The TPM methodology helped to increase the knowledge and the awareness of the employees. Below thereis the chart with the Factory KPIs in terms of PQCDSME.

Intangible improvements are demonstrated through the overall cultural change since the implementation of
the LPW program. We have achieved a significant increase in employee satisfaction through theintroduction of AM. The workshops, training and instructions are seen very positively by the employees
and are well used. The T&E pillar has produced excellent results, and employees are proud of their newskills and their machines. Supervisors have understood that any elimination of losses and especially thereduction of short stops is a relief for employees on the shopfloor.

4. Key of our Manufacturing ExcellenceTechnological progress and globalization mean that Lindt will also have to face increasing competition oninternational markets in the future. We must look for suitable patterns of action in order to maintain andcontinuously develop our successful situation. For this purpose, we want to deal more and more with theoptimization of the loss-cost matrix in the future and focus even more on the Conversion Cost.
In this context LPW will continue to keep focus on manufacturing, implementing 11 TPM pillars andlaunching soon the Cost pillar.

For this reason, we intend to continue focusing on our maintenance costs, logistics costs, setup processes
and the technical efficiency. In this context, we have recognized that in addition to more efficient
production, we also need to look at reducing waste along the entire value chain. To be able to cover thisconsideration in its entirety, we have decided to analyse the entire value stream in the future with the helpof the Lean Flow pillar.
With the steady increase in our product diversity, we will have to achieve even greater flexibility, this is
why we want to implement the Early Product Management Pillar.
The crisis situation, which was caused by the Corona pandemic, highlights the need to consider all peopledependent processes.
The rise in sickness rates during the crisis and the increasing shortage of skilled workers in Germany shows
up that competence development and visualization of the workplace are becoming increasingly important.
The pillars must develop good Poka Yoke solutions within the framework of their kaizens and constantly
optimize process stability.
In addition to costs, climate neutrality is becoming more and more relevant for large corporations. We arealso dealing very intensively with this vision and developing a clear plan of action.
To this end, we are developing clearly structured deployments to specifically reduce the largest energy andwater losses; this effort is being carried out as part of the Environment Pillar.