Lean Manufacturing has
become one of those catch
phrases that everyone
understands and can
immediately see the logic of,
but evidence of consistently
good results is hard to find.
‘Lean’ in Action
within Food and
Drink Manufacturing
hilst the drive for efficiency
improvements, within
engineering sectors has
been relentless there is still
a long way to go within the UK food
and drink manufacturing sector, yet
this is one of the most vulnerable
of all manufacturing sectors. This is
broadly due to the intense competition
between UK supermarkets, jostling for
market share, whilst simultaneously
demanding higher quality, total
compliance, special offers, shorter
batch runs and willing to accept few, if
any, price increases from their ownlabel manufacturer/suppliers.
W
Contrast this with the fact that those
same suppliers face ongoing demands
for higher raw material and energy
costs together with increased labour
costs, and it is easy to see that any
manufacturers, not fully committed to
continuous improvement, are likely to
struggle in the years ahead within such
competitive environments.
Lean Manufacturing has become one
of those catch phrases that everyone
understands and can immediately
see the logic of, but evidence of
consistently good results is hard to
find. One reason for this is that, whilst
the joint pressures of static sales
prices and rising conversion costs are
44
PECM Issue 17
here now, some companies seem to
imagine that continuous improvement
or ‘Lean’ is something they can put off
until next month/year/the year after.
So many are too busy firefighting in
order to get through today, to give
appropriate thought to continuous
improvement. Yet, most can see that,
through continuous improvement,
much of the need for firefighting will be
systematically reduced.
Most companies have already carried
out their Value Stream Map to
determine where they are adding
value, where they are adding cost and
perhaps have ideas about where they
could reduce costs and add value, but
this process needs to be constantly
reviewed to ensure that gains
made are sustained, whilst further
improvements are made.
In this regard, everything should
be questioned, again and again, in
pursuit of optimisation on the Lean
journey. In addition, all mistakes and
non-conformances that tie up so much
time and cost in firefighting should be
fully investigated so as to effectively
eliminate the same problems recurring
in future.
So why do so many fires break out in
the first place?
Our own experience, over nearly four
decad es, tells us that all factory floor
conversion problems (why things don’t
always turn out as intended) have their
roots in just three things:
• Loss of awareness (brief lapses of
concentration)
• Breaking the Rules (taking short
cuts which actually turn out to be
anything but)
• Errors of Judgement (taking an
educated guess instead of asking, or
referencing SOPs)
Any one of these might cause a
problem but a combination could spell
disaster, resulting in costly rework,
scrap or batch rejection and loss of
confidence.
So, if these issues are the biggest
enemies of Lean, how can they be
avoided?
So much of Food and Drink
manufacturing control is still paper
based and it’s easy to see how this
has evolved. Paper is cheap and can
be deployed anywhere within the
supply chain, promptly and easily.
Reliance upon paper recording however
is fraught with limitations. Firstly
it imposes little or no operational
discipline and consequently little
confidence that recorded tests were