Global Glass Bottle Manufacturer
Company wanted an analysis of their glass bottle making plant operations to identify opportunities to reduce labor cost.
CHALLENGE
Analyze six plants in six weeks to determine key drivers of cost, key opportunity areas for improvement, build action plans to reduce labor cost, and gain plant leadership agreement on the analysis and the action plan. Objective was to launch at each plant on Monday morning, and by Friday have the plant leadership sign up for the improvement actions and commit to the savings targets.
Assessment of each value stream in each area of each factory produced a manning chart with opportunities for manning reductions.
SOLUTION
Performed interviews, value stream mapping, gemba observation with documentation of activities, and cycle times and documented manning patterns across the plants. Verified findings and developed improvement opportunities in workshops. Recommendations were characterized by need for standard work and eliminating waste through more rigorous manning schedules based on standard work activity build-ups.
Collaboration with plant management produced a list of initiatives and agreed to headcount reductions.
BENEFITS
Each plant committed to projects which in total, exceeded the savings target and total cost savings averaged 9% (or $8 million) per year.
The summary results for all 6 facilities yielded agreed to reductions of 124—or 9%—of total hourly headcount.
