Growing Manufacturer
Increases Output by 50%
Situation
A food and beverage company was excited about projected sales growth for one of
their products and knew increased demand would soon outpace their production
capabilities. They were planning a multi-million-dollar capital expansion to meet this
demand which showed an attractive return. Even with this viable option on the table,
leaders were curious whether an alternative existed that could meet their demand
needs faster and at lower cost.
Finding More Opportunity
Over the previous twelve months the process had increased performance and was
running at its name-plate speed and a benchmark OEE for that product. Traditional
analysis showed little opportunity existed to push this unit further. Stroud helped the
team look for opportunities with a different approach. By isolating each mechanical
component of the process and assessing its theoretical maximum capability, the team
found that all but one component of the unit actually had excess capacity. The entire
unit was only limited by a cutter in the middle of the process. The next question to
answer was how to increase the capacity of the cutter.
Unleashing Potential
Plant leaders now saw three options: try to further improve their existing asset, invest
in a minor capital upgrade, or continue building a new unit. By narrowing their focus
to increasing only cutter capacity, the team found a decommissioned cutter was idle
in the plant scrap yard that could be run in parallel with the existing unit. Although
repurposing the idle cutter required investment, it was a fraction of the cost and time
requirement of other solutions, and yielded a much greater investment return.
Delivering Results
Process throughput increased 50% after the repurposed cutter was installed. Building
quick and inexpensive capacity on this unit allowed the plant to meet their growing
demand for the next several years and redeploy millions in capital towards further
accelerating other growth projects.
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