A leading manufacturer of nutritional powders and food products was transitioning a highly laborious operation to a newly built and automated facility; however, they struggled to adapt its previous processes and culture, leading to significant losses.
An assessment identified the themes of opportunity:
- Challenges to operate or optimize their product portfolio to the newly automated equipment
- Significant waste and rework as a result of attempting to ramp up or dial-in a run to a profitable state
- Excessive changeover times as processes were not adapted to the new facility, leading to broken equipment
- Lack of skillsets to maintain the new equipment
- Poor labor planning and management resulting in an inability to reduce labor due to automation changes
Carpedia’s engagement focused on developing and implementing foundational tools and processes to enable the facility to transition its operation and shut down their other facility.
Key changes included:
- Created planning tools to effectively line-load and run SKUs at an optimal rate
- Created and implemented SKU Scheduling tools to optimize the schedule and use maximum capacity
- Improved processes around Changeovers and Ramp Ups to increase uptime significantly
- Introduced visibility tools for all levels to effectively set production goals and diagnose variances
- Leveraged Active Management concepts to upgrade manager behaviors
- Standardized equipment operation
The Results
The engagement led to a sharp increase in productivity and armed management with the information needed to effectively manage the facility.
Specific results include:
- 160% improvement in productivity
- 127% improvement in daily production volume
- 134% improvement in throughput
- 60% improvement in yield rate
- 85% reduction in cost per unit
- 63% improvement in changeover attainment
- Shut down legacy facility ahead of schedule
