Case Studies

• OEE Losses (Quality/Scrap Rate and downtime) were excessive due to bad seals. Plant personnel could not identify root causes, and the problem had persisted for approximately one year. The plant looked to outside expertise to reduce OEE losses to improve throughput, reduce cost and improve Quality.​
• Challenges: Cost – Cost of Scrap had increased year over year | Downtime/throughput – Downtime for finding and removing scrap | Quality – bad seals reached consumers which increased consumer complaints | Time – Plant resources had to balance time with running day to day vs. taking time for analysis​
• A team was formed with operational, maintenance and engineering personnel. A local Project Leader was selected, and a charter was established with the Plant leadership team. There was a kick-off meeting with the team and leadership and then three days conducting process mapping. The week-long event was followed up with bi-weekly meetings for two months and then monthly for two months. Total engagement was approximately four months.​
• The team was led through process mapping that looked at the process from raw materials to bag formation. Four teams were created to look at four different areas of the process to compile documents, specifications and process data. The target was a 90% reduction in defects from the baseline with a stretch target to eliminate the problem entirely. ​
• The main areas of variation identified were the following:​
• Raw material – actual vs. spec. | Ambient conditions – impact on raw materials (moisture/humidity) | Mechanical dies – condition and maintenance | Formulation – amount/% of reclaimed material​
• Abnormalities were identified and used the production system (Man/Machine/Methods/Material/Environment) to identify root causes.​
• Based on the root cause, action plans were developed.​
• Various tools were utilized: process mapping, fish-bone diagram, OEE trends, PDCA, Standardized Work, TPM, Gemba and root-cause analysis.​
• The loss was reduced by over 90% and the plant realized a $300K savings/year. After receiving new pumps about 3 months later, there were no incidents recorded over a 30-day period (previously an incident occurred about 10 times/shift). When an issue came up again the team had the focus areas to go after and the first time the issue was quickly traced to the reclaim percentage.​
• This project highlighted that a systematic approach to problem solving gives a better and sustainable result vs. the “jump to cause” or “shotgun” approach.  It highlighted the need to ensure incoming raw material quality checks, ensuring process parameters are monitored, preventative maintenance is clear on what is being inspected. It verified that if PMs are not looking at the right things the equipment will deteriorate and become an issue

• A client was experiencing pallets of pails shifting during transport causing failure of the pallet stack.  
• Using focused improvement tools.   
• Understood the problem; frequency magnitude etc
• Developed a simulated field test to reproduce the failure
• Developed force diagrams and used a why-why analytical tool to determine root cause
• Identified a high center of gravity for the pails and a 2 inch gap between pails from one pallet to the other
• Each successive row of pallets failed 2 inches and with the 2 inchfailure in front multiplied the magnitude the further back in the trailer 
• Change the pallet pattern to eliminate the gap and zero failures after the improvement

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