Breaking Records Together – Operational and Reliability Excellence
Type:
Equipment Reliability Improvement
Client:
The client experienced a decline in Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) on a critical bottling line following the installation of a new automated case packer. The main assets on the line were approximately 10 years old and had undergone several modifications over recent years.
A review of production data, along with interviews with Production and Maintenance personnel, revealed key areas for improvement. An action plan was developed to restore OEE performance within a 7-week operational window—critical to fulfilling customer orders and maintaining supply commitments.
Goal:
The primary goal is to increase the weekly output from an average of 31 tons (37% OEE) to 63 tons (75% OEE) on one pack size within a 7-week timeframe
Solution:
A cross-functional Manufacturing Improvement Team (MIT) was assembled to address the decline in OEE. The first step was to conduct an Apollo Root Cause Analysis (RCA) focused on the deterioration of OEE on the production line. This provided a clear direction for corrective actions to reverse the performance drop in this customer-critical situation.
Following the RCA, the team executed a series of targeted improvement activities:
- Detailed OEE loss review
- Red tagging of the production line to identify non-essential items
- RCA on major loss events
- Development of Preventive Maintenance (PM) and Autonomous Maintenance (AM) programmes using FMECA
- Creation of a “Day in the Life” profile for a line operator
- Implementation of a Visual Management Board and supporting process
- Confirmation of actual line capacity
- Review and optimisation of the changeover process
Results:
This structured approach enabled the client to regain control over production losses and implement sustainable solutions to stabilise and improve OEE. By combining Operational Excellence and Reliability Excellence principles, the team successfully met the production target within a tight 7-week window.
- The FMECA study was completed in just 15 days and covered:
- 16 main assets
- 277 failure modes
- 275 maintenance tasks
- 127 Autonomous Maintenance tasks
- 148 Preventive Maintenance tasks
The analysis was conducted using Isograph Availability Workbench (AWB) software.
Key Findings:
The fast-tracked Manufacturing Improvement Team provided a focused, data-driven response to a critical performance issue. The initial RCA enabled the team to isolate the root causes of OEE loss and take immediate, high-impact actions.
The FMECA process delivered a failure-mode-driven, optimised maintenance strategy designed to reduce downtime and prevent recurring issues. Due to its success, this approach is now being adopted across other business units at the site, establishing a consistent methodology for performance improvement and reliability enhancement.
As part of our excellence journey, we partnered with PRS to facilitate this rapid intervention. The PRS team provided the framework, tools, and facilitation to ensure we hit the ground running. The structured approach allowed the team to work on key improvement areas in an accelerated manner.
The FMECA tool demonstrated how quickly and professionally a company can determine their critical assets and model various strategies to ensure reliability.
This process yielded the team not only to establish a good reliability foundation, but they broke a three-year production record as an added bonus.
This was a great example of using an excellence intervention to deliver other benefits that lead to operational excellence as well.
Site Manager –
Food Oil Facility, UK
