As part of a process to standardise practices across its operations, Clover has rolled out production monitoring technology from PRAGMA PRODUCTS across the group`s 72 packaging lines.
In 2005 Clover decided on a standardisation strategy, and after a pilot project on two lines, ON KEY Performance Manager was selected as the preferred system. While Clover had for many years measured line efficiencies, the company lacked a single system to facilitate a standardised and user-friendly measurement approach.
Clover is one of the oldest, largest and most trusted consumer brands in the South African food sector. It processes 30% of South Africa`s milk in 17 factories and distributes its products through 33 distribution depots. Clover has 5 800 employees and in 2005 had a turnover of R4.23 billion. In order to protect its dominant market position, Clover needed to ensure its factories operated at near optimal efficiency.
With ever-declining milk prices, and stiff competition from direct competitors and replacement products for value-added products such as butter, cheese, yoghurt, desserts and milk-based beverages, operational efficiency is critical within the dairy industry.
"With different factories each having their own definition of equipment effectiveness, it was impossible to compare their performance against each other, or against local and international benchmarks," says Nicie Vorster, Production Logistics Manager at Clover. "Excel was primarily used to capture data, making data analysis time-consuming. We needed a centralised system with a standardised measuring methodology."
The PRAGMA Performance Manager system had been used at certain Clover factories since 2001, but it was not applied throughout the group.
The implementation was also used as an opportunity to retrain operators in the basics of Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), and its impact on line productivity. The objective was to get operators to capture their own log sheets and draw their own reports. For this reason it was important that the system should be user-friendly and capable of providing easily understandable reports. Yet Clover also needed to be able to reconfigure reports.
User security was another critical requirement. Clover wanted complete control over the creation of new downtime reasons, standards and benchmark production rates, as these variables held the key to comparisons across sites.
"Performance Manager delivered exactly what we expected. We implemented it in conjunction with a team-based methodology, and can already report some interesting improvements. The ease of use really impressed me, and we were able to create very user-friendly reports that provide quick insight into plant productivity. The training of operators to capture their own log sheets caused them to take more ownership of line productivity," continues Vorster.
Clover reported a 6% increase in OEEs and a 4% increase in OPPs (Overall Plant Performance) after the first year of operation. "We are only now seeing the real benefits, so I expect more improvement during the next year. Many hours were invested during the past year on getting data accurate and training staff. The next year will be about driving improvement."
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