The process industry (food & beverage, liquids, sheet goods, solid & fluid packaging operations) differs from the parts manufacturing and assembly industry, where the Lean, 6 Sigma and Theory of Constraints methodologies were developed.
Here we list Lean tools and comment and how they can be applied to the process industry. In some cases they can’t!
Ever wish that there were simple, fundamental building blocks that could be used to represent your supply chain, no matter its complexity?
Hidden in the industrial engineering literature are 10 building blocks that can be used to clearly establish the performance of an entire supply chain.
Supply chains that have evolved using Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) or Supply Chain Management (SCM) systems should not be the only point of reference when designing a new supply network. Good supply network design is an iterative process focusing on both maximum flow and minimum cost. This iterative process starts at the organisation’s business strategy … Read more
The term Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) evolved from the parts manufacturing and assembly industry in Japan. Its parallel evolution with the Toyota Production System during the 1950’s thru 1960’s makes it intimately linked with Lean. The concept of TPM can be confusing for some managers in the process industry who ask; Is TPM a maintenance … Read more
Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) is often used as the main metric for factory performance in the process industry (food & beverage, liquids, sheet goods, solid & fluid packaging operations).
However, while OEE is a good measure for independent workstations and processes, production lines in the process industry are usually made up of several workstations and processes which are all connected together, rendering the OEE metric less than ideal.
The process industry (food & beverage, liquids, sheet goods, solid & fluid packaging operations) differs from the parts manufacturing and assembly industry, where the Lean, 6 Sigma and Theory of Constraints methodologies were developed. A system to manage bottlenecks within manufacturing supply chains was codified in the late 80’s by Dr Eliyahu Goldratt, and introduced … Read more
The process industry (food & beverage, liquids, sheet goods, solid & fluid packaging operations) differs from the parts manufacturing and assembly industry, where the Lean, 6 Sigma and Theory of Constraints methodologies were developed. Here we list 6 Sigma tools and comment and how they can be applied to the process industry. Historical Perspective 6 … Read more
The process industry (food & beverage, liquids, sheet goods, solid & fluid packaging operations) differs from the parts manufacturing and assembly industry, where the Lean, 6 Sigma and Theory of Constraints methodologies were developed. The unique characteristics of supply chains in the process industry make them less responsive to a one-size-fits-all approach. Performance optimisation in … Read more
Process factories (food & beverage, liquids, sheet goods, solid & fluid packaging operations) must satisfy the competing needs of high volumes, high variety and high variability. All of this in a capital intensive environment where throughput is limited by equipment rather than labour and where product changeover issues are very complex. Process factory design is … Read more
What does your customer value? The harsh reality is that customers often don’t care if your plant is state-of-the-art. They generally don’t care if your warehousing and transportation network is cutting edge.
Usually, what they care about is how quickly products move to and through their supermarket or factory, whether the product is to specification