Position Company for Aggressive Growth Strategy

The Challenge:

Carpedia was engaged to accelerate improvements to manufacturing capacity and unit costs in order to help position the company to execute an aggressive growth strategy.

The Results:

• The profitability improvement goal of the project was achieved, generating  an ROI of 3.4 to 1.
• Direct Labor cost per case reduced by 10%.
• Production line reliability improved by 6%.
• Material waste reduced by 46%.
• Maintenance cost per case reduced by 14%.
• FG inventory levels reduced by 20% while maintaining required service standards.

Specific actions taken to achieve the results included:

• Focus on uptime with improved machine utilization, maintaining required line speeds and revised crewing to allow production to continue running through breaks and lunches.
• Revised operator rotation schedules and training to provide qualified manning of constraint machines consistently.
• Wash up and changeover cycle time reduction through revised activities with defined standards to improve reliability and reduce material waste.
• Changing the planned manufacturing line for specific product runs to improve efficiency.
• Preventative maintenance focus on constraint machines to reduce downtime and reactive activity.
• Shift structure of maintenance department revised to reduce weekend overtime.
• Reduction of outside maintenance contractors to reduce unit costs.
• Reduction of under/over fill with machine adjustment and operator training to reduce material waste.
• Revised manufacturing organizational structure to improve supervisory accountability and focus.
• Improved scheduling and capacity planning to eliminate unneeded production and reduce inventory.

The Client Experience:

“The Carpedia team played the absolutely critical role of objectively facilitating the required changes. They facilitated the development and implementation of measurement systems, the papering of existing and desired processes and behaviors, and the development and implementation of method changes. In short, Carpedia brought focus, discipline, expertise, and a sense of urgency (all of which we were lacking) to our initiative.”

President & CEO, E.D. Smith