Enhancing Collaboration and Asset Performance in Packaging Material Manufacturing

A global leader in packaging for food, beverage, medical and other products has 225 sites worldwide and realizes over US$10 billion in sales. The Operations Manager for its Dutch site anticipated that production results could be improved and asked MaxGrip to identify the areas for improvement and help with implementing the changes. 

The MaxGrip consultant, a former Production Team Leader and Maintenance Manager himself, started with performing an improvement assessment. The recommendations were focused on getting insights in the performance of the Maintenance department including the regular improvement potential, improving the efficiency and therewith the effectiveness of the Maintenance department and on improving internal collaboration between departments.

Based on the recommendations the MaxGrip consultant in close collaboration with the Operations Manager and Maintenance Manager, deployed various improvements, including:

• Gaining better insights: setting up monthly reports on maintenance spend and forecasts, asset failures, top 3 performance killers.
• Changing way of working: going from shifts to day-time planned maintenance and on-call shifts for unplanned work.
• Further implementing OEE: improving reporting to show how Maintenance adds value to Overall Equipment Effectiveness.

All of the improvements were implemented within half a year. This meant that the organization had to change significantly in a short span of time. While there was some resistance in the beginning, the organization became enthusiastic about the new, futureproof setup quickly due to the significant benefits that were achieved. These were benefits for both the technical staff and management.