TPM Application in food processing plants – A case study of SA Partner (Part 2)

In the previous section, we learned about SA Partner’s goals and solutions when faced with the issue of improving productivity at a typical food processing factory. This section will continue with specific improvement activities carried out under the guidance of the SA advisory group.

Immediately after defining the objective, the consultant team asked the plant management to take steps in turn according to the prepared process. The first thing to do is to organize a 4-day intensive training course to spread the general knowledge and benefits of TPM application (training time may vary to suit the enterprise scale).

The management board then designed a awareness survey to assess the TPM readiness of each employee, especially for production and maintenance teams. Potential employees will be assigned to be in charge of data collection and waste detection at the place where they work. The OEE component indexes are monitored daily in the pilot equipment group.

Through the above process, a number of losses were clearly shown in terms of data, such as: Defective products accounted for a high proportion (over 10% of production); many fail frequently due to improper maintenance; At the beginning of each shift, the workers take time to wait for the device to start; many devices have to idle to wait for materials from other devices, etc.

To address these issues, SA Partner has conducted direct training and guidance at points considered bottlenecks of the whole process. On the other hand, awareness raising for workers is also boosted by valuing the losses they accidentally cause. TPM improvement groups are also given lessons and cross-checking. The management and reward mechanism has also been revised to suit each implementation stage.

Benefit brought

Financial

• Factory output increased approximately 30% compared to the time before TPM was applied
• Save 8% on raw material costs per kg of product

About performance

• OEE index increased from 54% to 70%
• Reduce unplanned downtime from 700 minutes per week to 200 minutes
• Improve product quality, reduce defect rates and limit customer complaints

It can be seen that, only through solutions to improve overall equipment efficiency, each enterprise can make good use of its existing potentials to optimize production capacity, reduce raw material cost and limit minimize losses in the production process. However, the maintenance of TPM activities also needs to be done continuously so that the benefits of this tool can be long-term and sustainable.

Productivity and Quality Office