Every consumer packaged goods (CPG) company in North America faces common challenges. Retailer and consumer expectations for package appearance, utility, convenience, size and price are ever more demanding. Most commodity, labor and material prices seem to be higher even as recent news indicates they should be lower. Price and cost pressure are incessant - and every manufacturer has to do more, faster, and with less.
These pressures impact companies of varying size in different ways. Many factory locations of multinational corporations (MNCs) operate under similar local constraints as comparably sized privately held/independent small and medium business (SMB) operations. Reduced maintenance staffing and workforce challenges, for instance, impact large and small companies alike.
While extensive hierarchies, rigorous budgeting and inevitable bureaucracy can restrict flexibility compared to SMBs, MNCs often have centralized engineering resources and well developed methodologies to monitor and optimize OEE. That gives them a slight advantage, but there is almost no barrier for SMBs eager to adopt similar rigor.
There’s a fancy language around OEE, and lots of options for parametric data collection and logging that promise to ease the burden of logging and tracking. There are even software vendors that promise to do the analysis for you! And while they can streamline data management in some cases, the success or irrelevance of an OEE initiative often comes down to basics - blocking and tackling of machine set-up, observation, tracking, analysis and training.
Where should SMB’s begin?
We’ve created a starting point and step-by-step playbook so that every operation can implement the same sort of rigorous OEE improvement process that the multinationals rely on for their competitive edge, The Maximizing OEE for Vertical Bagging Operations Guide!
The guide covers key steps including:
- Defining your specs for vertical form fill and seal machines
- Establishing key targets
- Observations and baseline
- Comparing cost to return
- The "nuts & bolts" of improving OEE
- Training and maintenance
- Other efficiencies you'll likely realize
Click here or follow the link below to get your free copy of the Maximizing OEE for Vertical Bagging Operations Guide.