Food Producer and Packager

COUNTRY: United States

OVERVIEW:

A large national producer of limited shelf life products controlling the majority of the market in the United States

PRIORITY OBJECTIVES:

• Increase overall plant efficiency by increasing each line’s efficiency allowing for increased throughput
• Installation of the Management Operating System including an annual Plant Capacity Planner and an enhanced daily schedule providing detailed information for each product run
• Change the behavior on the floor by:
  • Increasing the amount of active supervision
  • Improving the problem resolution mechanism
  • Improving management focus through training and coaching
  • Improving communications at all organizational levels

PVA’S RESPONSE:

PVA initiated a continuous improvement project at a facility in the upper mid west, the second of the plants of this division that PVA was contracted to work with.

A Management Operating System was installed that focused on:

• Identifying the bottle necks of the plant when running different products mixes
• Improving the scheduling process to reduce the impact of the identified bottlenecks
• Identifying the issues and problems that prevented achieving targeted efficiency, and subsequently developing the action plans to correct these issues
• Enhanced understand and subsequently use of the KPI’s

In addition PVA reorganized the management structure to allow for:

• Better definition of accountability and expectations at all levels within the organization
• Increased communication at all levels within the organization with focus on ensuring all communications reflect the knowledge level targeted
• Definition of the Roles and Responsibilities for the Management Team
• Introduction of the Accountability Stream, defining the approach to dealing with employees

PROJECT RESULTS:

The results from the continuous improvement project are:

• Overall Plant Efficiency improvement of 10%
• Overtime Reduction of 72%
• Overall Direct Labor cost improvment of 15%
• Overall Indirect Labor cost improvement of 13%

PERPETUATION OF RESULTS:

The Management Operating System is a cornerstone to perpetuation and each level of management is accountable of different levels of information. In addition to this a Continuous Improvement Coordinator has been put in place and trained. His function is to continue to monitor and audit the Management Operating System and then work with the Plant Manager and appropriate other managers to develop action plans to any identified variance. The Continuous Improvement Coordinator is also accountable to ensure that Managers and Supervisors are properly trained in the effective and correct usage of the Management Operating System.

VERBAL:

“We now see our Supervisors every 2 hours to identify problems we are having on the machines. In the past we would have had to wait for break time to inform the Supervisor of any issues on the lines. The maintenance department is getting a lot more work completed and the response time on emergencies has improved significantly.” – Production Employees