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.

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. Abnormalities were identified and the team used the production system

(Man/Machine/Methods/Material/Environment) to identify root causes. Various tools were

utilized: process mapping, fish-bone diagram, OEE trends, PDCA, Standardized Work, TPM,

Gemba and root-cause analysis.

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

 Too often, improvement results aren’t sustained because alignment stops at the outcome. While organizations may agree on what success looks like, they don’t always share clarity or commitment around the day-to-day activities and standard work needed to maintain it. We bridge this gap across all levels of the organization so improvements endure and can be consistently replicated.