Case Study: Optimizing Manufacturing Efficiency
About
Business Overview
Make improvements to the manufacturing process for a plastics company who specialise in large water tanks for rural applications.
Background
Following steady throughput increases, this factory was experiencing growing pains with respect to Quality Management, Production Planning, Forecasting and Materials Storage.
The Problem
A lack of effective and efficient systems had led to sub-optimal inventory controls, variances in stocktake quantities, inaccurate cost estimates and unplanned maintenance.
The Process
We interviewed key personnel, and used an FMEA approach (Failure Modes and Effects Analysis) to document the AS-IS processes and any unnecessary costs in each step. This led to improvement actions and expected savings in cycle time and production costs.
The Results
We identified 15 improvement projects, including Dispatch Processes, Finished Goods Yard Layout, Production Data Entry and True Cost Tracking; with clear actions, timelines and owners, where the total savings identified were more than $500,000 per annum.