Polish vodka producer exceeds OEE targets with rapid best practice deployment

At the start of 2016, Polish vodka producer Central European Distribution Corporation (CEDC) International realized that in order to compete on an equal footing with its major competitors, it had to improve its manufacturing efficiency. Low employee engagement, moderate and reactive safety and health performance, lack of capacity planning, and quality were some of the aspects identified as improvement obstacles.

In consultation with the CCi team, site leadership decided that for continuous improvement to gain traction, they would implement a rapid deployment project to achieve quick wins. The aim of the project was to increase Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) from 42% to 57% over a 12-week period. Line 4 at the Oborniki plant was selected as the pilot line.

To get the implementation process going, an in-depth performance and best practice assessment was conducted to establish the baseline maturity of the plant. Based on the outcomes of this assessment, plant management — supported by the CCi team — formulated a rapid deployment approach to best practice implementation.

Following a loss and waste analysis conducted by the Executive Leadership Committee and Site Steering Committee, the following profit improvement projects (PIPs) were identified:

• Changeover processes and tools
• Establishing a short-interval control and root cause problem-solving discipline
• Establishing daily operations review (at shift and production multidisciplinary team level)
• Supervisory administration
• Planning rules: shift-to-shift allocation, planning standards

Project champions were allocated for each PIP to initiate each project and take accountability for achieving the improvement targets. A lean leader to take overall responsibility was also appointed. All projects were measured in terms of work content to define the number of team members for each.

PIP teams were trained on how to do a loss and waste analysis on the pilot line, which helped engage the employees as they themselves discovered improvement opportunities. Through the CCi-facilitated approach, balanced KPIs were identified and defined for the operational line team.

All the relevant information pertaining to the rapid deployment project was visually displayed in A3 format so that all employees could track the progress.

Quantified improvements exceeded expectations:

• After 12 weeks of rapid deployment, OEE increased from 42% to 60.5% (3.5% above target) on Line 4
• The project reduced production cost of two major SKUs by 30,000 PLN per month
• Total cost reduction is estimated at 50,000 PLN per month, amounting to 600,000 PLN per annum