INITIAL PLAN FOR SONOCO IMPROVEMENT

Basic Notes

1. Identify performance by line;

a. Which line suffers the most downtime,
b. Which line produces the highest value products,
c. Which line has the biggest impact on customer service
2. Worst line needs to be focused on,
3. Across all the lines, which item of equipment is causing the biggest problem (based on cost,
customer service)
a. Work through the line by equipment to prioritise the worst item,
4. Need to;
a. Check the condition of the equipment “carry out the condition appraisal”
b. Check what PMs are being done on the item of equipment, is everything covered
and are they up to date.
c. This may be appropriate time to carry out a “criticality Analysis” on the equipment
components based on wear, this is so as to identify which parts need to be checked
more frequently on the equipment.
d. Also what cleaning is undertaken on the equipment, is it cleaned regularly, has an
initial cleaning standard been established and this time improved on.
e. Is there a lubrication schedule in place for the equipment which is separate from the
PMs.
5. At the start of each shift/day is a pre start-up check carried out of the equipment and
recorded. This relates to safety (e-stops, guards in place and also general cleanliness of the
equipment)

Example of a matrix to prioritise the line for performance improvement

Line 1 Line 2 Line 3 Line 4 Line 5 Line 6 Line 7 Line 8

Customer Service 91% 93% 94% 99% 84% 92% 89% 95%
Av Weekly loss Cost (£k) £1500 £1360 £980 £259 £960 £1100 £1570 £800
Performance 50% 65% 58% 71% 35% 57% 49% 61%
Downtime 20% 12% 31% 12% 43% 27% 38% 14%
Change Overs 30% 23% 11% 17% 22% 16% 13% 25%
Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
PM Completion 48% 42% 55% 64% 42% 41% 51% 57%
Focus Improvement Priority

Which line do we pick to start with?

Based on worst performance, then Line 5 has lowest customer service (84%), Lowest Line
performance (35%) and highest downtime (43%).

However based on weekly cost loss then Line 7 needs to be the focus.

Also why is Line 4 having better performance, is the low downtime due to higher PM completion
rates or lower change overs

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Driving Reliability

1. Evaluate if a PM and Lubrication system is in place which covers all the equipment,
2. Does it cover all the equipment, check against the site cad plan to visualise what is covered
and not covered.
3. What is the current PM completion rate, is it tracked/measured and is it made visible,
4. Where have the PMs come from – (OEM manuals, engineers experience, other factories)
5. Review the PMs for content and how are they allocated to the engineers,
6. Do the PMs get allocated to specific engineers or is it just left for everyone to get them
done.
7. Review if a criticality Analysis needs to be undertaken. (Note this will need to be carried out
after determining which line is causing the biggest issues to the site). There is no point in
carrying out a lengthy criticality analysis of the site equipment when performance and
financial data is telling us that specific lines are causing major issue for the business.
8. Prioritise the lines and set up a focus team (Operations, Engineering, Quality – establish a
TPM team and follow an improvement process.) Speak to the CI Champion, does he have an
“Improvement Process” that can be implemented. Look at the methods used previously,
also the NEPA process done by Paradise Foods
9. Review the PMs for the worst line and the worst equipment on that line.
10. Collate a list of all the issues relating to the line and place into the 4M chart to visualise the
issue. Look to carry out a WHY – Why Analysis to identify the root cause. This has to be
done as a focused improvement team.
11. Do the PMs address the failures experienced, check the failures recorded and compare the
PMs in place and do they actually prevent this type of failure. If the PMs have been done,
have they been done correctly, is there sufficient detail in the PM to ensure engineers are
doing the PM correctly.
12. Important to evaluate the equipment using the “Equipment Appraisal” this also needs to
include general condition regarding cleanliness by the operators.
13. From the equipment appraisal process create the action plan and implement the actions.
These need to be posted up at the line side and progress tracked daily/weekly as
appropriate. Need to also ensure line performance is tracked as well to show if the work
being done is making a difference. This is a joint project, Operations, Engineering and
Quality”
14. Is the TPM slot established to allow the checks and work to be done every week?
15. Establish the line performance tracker at the side of the line so need a board making.
16. Once performance is showing to improve and the first target achieved, need to establish the
next team on the next worst line and start the process using the learning from this project to
improve the next ones each time (Continuous Improvement)

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SELECT PROCESSES FOR IMPROVEMENT (Notes from Business Improvement)

Selecting the process to work on is a very critical step in the total BPI cycle. A lot of
effort can be wasted, and the program can be dropped because of lack of interest and
payback, if the wrong processes are selected.

The processes that are selected should be ones where management and/or customers
are not happy with the status quo. Normally, one or more of the following symptoms
will be the reason for selecting a process for improvement.

• External customer problems and/or complaints.

• Internal customer problems and/or complaints.
• High-cost processes.
• Long cycle time processes.
• There is a better-known way (benchmarking, etc.).
• New technologies are available.
• Management direction based on an individual manager's interest in applying the
methodology or to involve an area not involved otherwise.

Selecting these critical processes is one of the EIT's most important responsibilities.
It never should be delegated. In selecting the process to work on, there are five things
you should keep in mind:
• Customer impact: How much does the customer care?
• Changeability index: Can you fix it?
• Performance status: How broken is it?
• Business impact: How important is it to the business?
• Work impact: What resources are- available?

Often, management gets carried away with its enthusiasm and hunger for
improvement and overcommits its organization to the BPI activities. We suggest that
you limit the initial phase to no more than 20 critical processes, although some
companies have been very successful improving many more processes
simultaneously. Martin Marietta started its process improvement activities in 1988,
and by the middle of 1989, it had analysed about 200 different processes and
implemented changes to more than 125 of them. The following are a number of
approaches that have been used to select critical processes.

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Weighted Selection Approach

Another way of accomplishing the same task is to have the EIT give each of the major
business processes a rating (from 1 to 5) in the following four categories:
• Customer impact
• Changeability
• Performance
• Business impact
A rating of 1 indicates that the process is difficult to do anything with or that it has
little impact. A rating of 5 indicates that the process is very easy to change or that it
has a big impact. The ratings of the four categories for each business process are
totalled, and these totals are used to set the priorities as shown in Figure 2.2.

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Impact Diagram

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