Today’s food manufacturers operate in a fast-paced environment in which, now more than ever, keeping production processes efficient and competitive is a key factor in corporate success. A prerequisite for this is continuous and high-output performance by the equipment installed. With its Operational Excellence Consulting (OEC) programme, SIG Combibloc now offers food and beverage industry customers a new service range to enable them to achieve a sustainable increase in overall equipment effectiveness.
The aim of the OEC programme is to work with the customer to develop tailor-made solutions that contribute to optimising individual filling lines, or entire production plants. For the Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group, one of China’s leading dairy enterprises, SIG Combibloc’s OEC has helped the company achieve an 11 per cent increase in overall equipment effectiveness at two factories in Hohhot. Further OEC consultation procedures are currently ongoing at Unilever and FrieslandCampina.
Franz-Josef Mines, Head of Global Service at SIG Combibloc: “The strategy of our technical service is to support our customers in ensuring that the filling machines from SIG Combibloc and the people who work with them every day benefit from the best possible preparation and development so they can deliver an excellent performance. The OEC is a good example of taking action to ensure lasting and sustainable success”. The OEC service thus goes far beyond the technical support during installation and in the operation of the filling machines that customers expect as a matter of course. SIG Combibloc’s service portfolio is complemented by an extensive range of extra added-value services.
These added-value services include the Operational Excellence Consulting (OEC) programme with the aim to optimise overall equipment effectiveness and to reduce operating costs. This means food and beverage manufacturers who opt for this service feature benefit from the experience with production processes that SIG Combibloc has gained from working with customers across the globe over many years. Examples of best practice are also incorporated into the consultancy service provided by this systems manufacturer. The OEC is based on a structured, modular 3-stage programme consisting of analysis, conception and implementation. Franz-Josef Mines: “The programme helps companies achieve the highest level of transparency, and as a result enables them to formulate clearer strategies for solutions to improve production and organisational processes, increase overall equipment effectiveness and lower operating costs”.
The analysis stage begins with a thorough process of data collection and evaluation, to provide a full and comprehensive overview over the company-specific processes involved and to enable businesses to manage these processes more efficiently in the future. This is aided by detailed on-the-spot analyses and interviews on current line efficiency, production times and possible achievement potentials. Upon request, SIG Combibloc can also provide a systematically designed Line Monitoring System for the analysis and sustainable optimisation of production processes.
Tobias Hammeke, Head of Global Service Sales & Consulting at SIG Combibloc: “In the subsequent conceptual stage, we then work with our customers to define specific goals and measures that will directly help to improve production capacity and overall equipment effectiveness. In this process, we focus on the key factors leading to improvements, and we and the customer agree precise timetables for implementation”.
