Background
A well known branded traditional bakery embarked on a site improvement program. It wasn’t the first. Many remembered a TQM initiative which inspired many but seemed to have trailed off as other priorities overtook the business. The site team were looking for a process which could kick start improvement. Therefore a program of change began. This included running a number of improvement workshops which challenged the accepted norm.
Issue/Problem
Waste was a significant problem in the area. Defective product was being produced by the bin load and as the product had low margins any losses suffered hit the area very quickly. Also the area had reached capacity. Production was round the clock so the challenge was to find solutions to the waste problems and in turn look to producing more in the time available.
Solution
A workshop was run to focus on these problems. Through application of tools and techniques such as DBM and PCS the workshop achieved: a) A reduction in the waste produced… An operator told us, “It’s brilliant! We used to produce 3 or 4 full bins of waste a day now we’re down to less than ½ a bin! The final bit of work we do should reduce it to virtually nothing!” b) An increase in OEE.
Benefits
An extra 23,000 units per day are now achievable from the plant which equated to an extra 2,800 packets per day of revenue from the area. Other benefits also included a cultural response to the changes made in the area. Where before the area team felt nothing could be done to improve the area, now they feel that with support they can achieve even greater results.