Abstract
This paper investigates current productivity levels of baked beans in a fast manufacturing consumer goods (FMCG) company. The market demand for baked beans on average has increased by 14% year on year over the past two to three years. This growth was unexpected and was unplanned for, hence equipment was utilized to maximum capacity, at times ignoring maintenance issues. The outcome of this approach was a major concern of unplanned stoppages on the production line. The canning process has manual activities such as soaking and sorting. Blanching is semi¬automatic while filling and seaming are fully automated. The filling station was identified as the bottleneck station due to its slow speed (145 cans/minute) as compared to the seamer (200 cans/minute). The major objective of this study was to evaluate how the productivity of the canning process was achieved. Efforts were made to increase the output of soaking, sorting and blanching. This led to the reduced cycle time of the filler and the elimination of sources of contaminations. Industrial engineering tools such as autonomous maintenance, total productive maintenance, total quality management and some of the 20 keys were used to improve the plant’s production output. This paper contributes to the theory of productivity improvement and to industry practitioners it highlights challenges faced when improving productivity.
Highlights
In today’s business environment, manufacturing organisations face challenges such as meeting delivery targets, producing quality products, creating shareholder value and improving productivity [1]
Literature suggests that some companies have successfully addressed some of these problems through the implementation of the following tools and techniques: total quality management (TQM), total productive maintenance (TPM), just in time (JIT), Kaizen, 5S, 20 keys to workplace improvement, Lean and Lean Six Sigma, [1]; [2]
This study focuses largely on dry small white bean for baked beans manufacturing process. 80% of baked beans produced in South Africa are used in the canning industry
Summary
In today’s business environment, manufacturing organisations face challenges such as meeting delivery targets, producing quality products, creating shareholder value and improving productivity [1]. Literature suggests that some companies have successfully addressed some of these problems through the implementation of the following tools and techniques: total quality management (TQM), total productive maintenance (TPM), just in time (JIT), Kaizen, 5S, 20 keys to workplace improvement, Lean and Lean Six Sigma, [1]; [2]. This study focuses largely on dry small white bean for baked beans manufacturing process. 80% of baked beans produced in South Africa are used in the canning industry. Most canned beans manufacturing is largely manual. These manual processes are causes of delays on the line, with every slight stoppage affecting productivity
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