Did you know, one of the FMCG organizations was able to improve its productivity by 4x just by implementing lean solutions?
The organization is one of the leading FMCG product producers. They were not being able to meet the sales forecast because the product prices were low. The senior management team also considered adding an additional 20-25 production works to achieve the demand. But after doing so, quality defects started bothering. 99% of the time there was a defect in the product and most of them were identified and corrected internally.
Productivity Improvement in FMCG Industry
The organization later decided to implement lean and five S. Employees were asked to form Natural Work Teams (NWTs) and work collectively in a new cellular layout designed to implement the process. Five S and Kanban was used to reduce inventory that was in work in process and was able to conduct uninterrupted replenishment of parts.
Various new innovative solutions, components, and hardware standardizations were suggested and implemented. Common tools that were needed, but in constant short supply, were bought and kept in precise and accessible locations. A turntable was constructed for easy lifting of heavy machine parts.
Before implementing these processes, each employee from the production department was expected to produce 1.8% of the primary unit each day. But after implementing the processes, each individual employee was capable of producing one unit every 15 minutes, 4 units per hour, and 32 units per day, with 99% perfect quality using only 4 assemblers.
Here, you can see the improvement in productivity by more than 4 times. Work in process and finished goods inventories were under control, and there was no need to hire additional production staff.
As you can see, implementing continuous improvement initiatives helps organizations not only save time and money but also utilize it properly and increase the overall productivity to meet the target demands. So, have you started implementing lean and continuous improvement initiatives to improve organizational productivity?
