Background

Our client is a North American rigid packaging manufacturer of plastic bottles and containers. Operational Excellence is a principle tenet of the executive leadership team specifically raw material utilization to drive improved bottom line net income.

The Challenge

Balancing footprint consolidation with ongoing manufacturing efficiency efforts possessed significant challenges in resource allocations. Management has distributed the capital funds to necessary drive the product re-balancing however execution needs to be swift and concise to deliver on all of the key objectives.

Root Cause

SBTI executed plant observations and supporting data collection efforts to document the material flow through the full shop floor value stream. While the client had a dedicated and experienced work force, opportunity existed to accurately measure material usage to better respond to variances.

Local leadership experienced the value of our exercise when it was discovered that 2.5 times more material was flowing in an unfavorable direction than previously realized. Documenting this fact allow supervision to develop procedures and adjust variables to reduce the root cause.

Opportunity

Brainstorming sessions revealed enhanced procedures in downstream process management and routine defect detection metrics to drive productive behaviors and error proof the material diversion at the front of the process.

Results

Locally the results were the appreciation and value of continuous improvement methodology which boded well in leveraging the skills gained on other projects. Financial totaled tens of thousands in improved material utilization.

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