Case study · Food & Beverage
Case-ready meat plant saves $16M with a real-time management operating system
A four-year-old case-ready beef and pork plant needed better line efficiency across 40 production lines. The company brought USC back to install a management operating system with real-time line tracking.
Results
$16M
in savings at one plant
24%
increase in labor productivity per hour
16%
increase in throughput
Results are for one plant; the system later went to two more.
The situation
The plant packed more than two million pounds of beef and pork a week for a single customer, a nationwide supermarket chain. With 40 lines, many products, a highly automated packaging department and a variable product mix, it needed a management operating system covering production, maintenance interfaces, planning and scheduling.
What the assessment found
- No effective management operating system across 40 lines and a variable product mix
- Downtime causes not visible to supervisors as they happened
- Excess tray and packaging inventory in the warehouse
How the work was done
Lines: track results in real time
Paired process improvement with USC's Lean Information Control System (LINCS) to show supervisors real-time production and downtime on every filling and packaging line.
16%
increase in throughput
Downtime: rank and remove causes
Used Pareto analysis and action management to eliminate downtime causes, and trained managers and supervisors in clean-in-place procedures.
24%
increase in labor productivity per hour
Support: trays and packaging
Improved the areas supplying trays to the lines and cut excess tray and packaging inventory in the warehouse.
30%
reduction in packaging waste
“Based on the success we've experienced locally, we plan to extend the LINCS® business intelligence solution across all three of our case ready plants.”
Lasting impact
Plant managers could manage minute by minute or by shift, day or week, and yields rose 3%. The company then extended the system across all three of its case-ready plants.
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