Our Client produces a range of specialty meats and other food products from operations in British Columbia and five other Canadian provinces as well as in Washington State and Nevada in the United States. The key project objective was to improve the operational effectiveness.
Increase overall effectiveness through improved scheduling of work and use of resources.
Increase effectiveness of the front-line management team through training and on-the-floor performance coaching.
Install Management Operating Systems (MOS) to provide greater visibility to daily operational status.
Assessment Findings
Lack of proper preparation and staging of materials to feed equipment.
There were no standard production rates for the processing lines.
Rework due to the low quality of casings resulting in ripping of the meat.
Machines down due to mechanical and electrical problems.
Uneven loading of the hangers created inefficiencies from line employees and ineffective use of capacities of all the operational areas.
Rework in the packaging area due to processing overweighed meat or machine deficiencies.
Line downtime in the packaging area due to scales not working, repairing blades, running out of labels and jamming knives.
Machine cycles per minute not set to maximize output.
Changing production sequence caused workers to search for other types of meat in the cooling room.
General lack of preparation before work was executed in the Maintenance department.
Managers and Supervisors generally believed that their people knew what to do and would ask them when they needed help.
Food Services Meat Assessment Findings
Work Time
Non Effective Time
Change-Over
PVA's Response
Developed employee skills improvement and cross-training programs to address station-fill specialization issues.
Developed a labor Master Schedule tool to optimize resource to volume requirements in all areas.
Training and on-the-floor performance coaching of the Supervisors to drive enhanced roles and responsibilities related to a more proactive management style.
Enhanced the role of the Lead Hands to engage them in scheduling resources.
Developed a multi-point “coaching assessment” to monitor the behavioral improvements of the Supervisors and Managers on-the-floor.
Developed “earned hours” for all products to better assist in the management of changing mix issues.
Implemented Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) leading to a more balanced approach to managing the business.
Improved capacity planning to focus on both product and demand specific requirements.
Reviewed and corrected standards and operating procedures for sanitation.
Implemented communication key meetings (including agendas): shift starts, supervisory tours, daily reviews, weekly operations and executive reviews.
The Results
Hover over graphs for more information
Improvements in communication with regard to sanitation and production issues.
Increased production throughput levels of up to 26%.
Improvements in the levels of proactive management by the Supervisors.
Clear expectations, follow-up and accountability at all organizational levels.
Implemented action oriented meetings at all organizational levels.
Transparency and visibility on all Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s).
Improvement in Supervisory Activities
Food Services Meat Supervisory Activities
PRE-PROJECT
1%0%35%26%38%
POST-PROJECT
40%5%20%15%20%
Active Supervision
Training
Administration
Manual Work
Available
Savings
Food Services Meat Savings
Performance
Long Term Work Continuation
A Client Coordinator was trained and certified during the PVA engagement.
A quarterly audit program of the new Management Operating System was developed and implemented with the Coordinator.
PVA conducted audits over 18 months to ensure compliance to the continued utilization of the Management Operating Systems.
These Audits resulted in recommendations and action plans to further identify additional opportunities for improving operations.
