Operational Improvement Strategies

SJW Associates (UK) Ltd.

Hands-on lean operational advice to improve quality, cost and delivery.

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Case Study: Better planning improves Plant Delivery

Terms of reference

The company had identified the need for improvements in their operations through better coordination between manufacturing and supply and in particular closer coupled interaction between the production and delivery of orders and more effective scheduling and planning.

Project objectives

The overall project aims were to establish for the site:

  • the strengths and weaknesses of the business’s planning and delivery systems when compared to ‘best in class’ performance for the Speciality Batch Chemicals sector
  • the specific business benefits of achieving improved levels of performance and the identification of the business changes that would be required to deliver the improvements
  • to assist the business in designing and implementing the changes to its systems and training its people to operate the new systems so that the improved levels of performance were delivered

Process of delivery

The project was delivered in the following phases:

  • an initial benchmark of the company’s business was undertaken to confirm the company’s performance against the key metrics of quality, cost and delivery and to quantify the perceived gaps
  • the company’s Supply Chain was examined to identify where the particular problems of production delay occurred
  • a solution was designed to resolve the problems by the introduction of a production scheduling system to address the management of capacity bottlenecks

Project outcomes

The project achieved the following:

  • a significant improvement in the plant’s delivery of product to customers (OTIF) and stock turns whilst at the same time improving the factory efficiency (OEE)
  • the provision of a visible and easily accessible production plan for the plant that provided accurate status on any particular work order and allowed confirmation of delivery dates
  • the provision of accurate data for the ongoing improvement of the plant’s capability by the establishment of a library of best demonstrated run times

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