Tailored service agreement added 4.5M packs per month in just 18 months
Case in short
Customer
A North American producer with over 100 SKUs: white milk, dairy alternatives, soups, wine and spirits, tea and coffee.
Challenge
This producer couldn’t deliver on their sales contracts and had to pay penalties to their customers. They needed to improve output to support increased sales.
Solution
As the producer was highly capacity constrained, we tailored a Tetra Pak® Plant Perform Agreement, focusing on improvement activities and a competence development program with set targets.
Result
Already after six months the producer observed the first results. At the end of the agreement period, the Total Capacity Utilization (TCU) had increased by 11% and they produced 4.5 million more packs per month.
Customer challenge
The producer had to pay penalties to customers for underdelivering on their contracts. They needed to improve output to support increased sales – but with over 100 SKUs that was a challenge. Our initial Benchmark analysis amongst their industry peers – using our years of data and equipment expertise – showed that they were capacity constrained and ranked among the lowest quartile for Line Machine Mechanical Efficiency (LMME).
Our solution
In order to increase LMME in the chosen lines, it was essential to ensure a systematic and consistent approach to maintenance, making sure operators and technicians had clear responsibilities, were appropriately trained and working according to best practices and standard operating procedures. So we appointed a delivery manager to orchestrate all maintenance activities on site. We also initiated a 121-day competence development programme. We had full time on-site engineers to coordinate improvement activities with specialist support. And we also implemented a real-time Packaging Line Monitoring System, PLMS.
Results achieved
Within six months, the producer observed the first results, and by the end of the 18-month agreement, the following results were achieved:
- Average LMME had increased across all lines from 70% to 75.5%
- The number of unplanned cleaning-in-place events was reduced
- Total capacity utilization grew by 11%, producing an additional 4.5 million packages per month with the same equipment
Satisfied with the outcome, the producer renewed the service agreement for an additional 12 months with a new average LMME target of 80% across all lines.