Beverage

Technical Environment: FMCG Drinks Industry

Context:

Our Client’s customers include Ireland’s most famous whisky manufacturer and they represent a critical element in their supply chain.  The spirits bottling business is high variety/small batch in nature.  Low lead times and responsiveness are critical.  New business was being declined due to packaging capacity bottlenecks having been reached.  Lengthy product changeovers in particular were a problem.  Tool-setters and fitters saw no personal wins in innovating ways to effect faster line reconfiguration.

Failure to raise productivity and responsiveness were beginning to pose a risk to key customer relationships and action was urgently required. Project management expertise was an essential prerequisite coupled with knowledge and understanding of Lean thinking and Change management.

Tecknic’s role: 

• Operations assessment, project management and change management

• Planning and communication using a range of tools including MS Project

• Management of cross-functional project teams

• Technical support

• Manage stakeholder relationships

Objectives:

• Improve productivity and service key performance indicators (KPI’s)

• Implement SMED & TOC principles

• Transfer knowledge and build a sustainable continuous improvement programme (CIP)

• Improve staff engagement with process innovation plans, manage change

• Find and remove process bottlenecks, lift productivity

Achievements:

• Productivity increased by 30%

• Improved Supply chain response – zero back orders achieved (i.e., shifted bottleneck to the market)

• Lean knowledge transfer – staff development

• Ongoing improvement programme established