Zhejiang O.R.G. Packaging achieves 7.6% production increase with TRACC rapid deployment

Competition in today’s manufacturing environment is fierce. The price of raw and auxiliary materials continues to rise, gross profit margins of standard products are shrinking, consumer demand for quality products is increasing, and government regulations around environmental sustainability are becoming ever stricter.

Against this backdrop, Zhejiang O.R.G. Packaging struggled to maintain product quality, preventive maintenance was lacking due to skills shortages, team leaders lacked problem-solving skills, and there was a lack of communication and collaboration between functions.

In addition, demand often exceeded supply – resulting in teams working regular overtime. These factors contributed to excessively high manufacturing costs.

In June 2021, Zhejiang O.R.G. Packaging adopted the TRACC digital integrative improvement solution to commence its world-class journey. Following a rapid deployment approach, the facility implemented seven TRACC best practices to address the prevailing challenges. The best practices are Leading & Managing Change, Teamwork, 5S, Visual Management, Focused Improvement, Asset Care and Operations Alignment.

In quick succession, the leadership team – together with the TRACC advisors – introduced the following:

• A loss and waste analysis to identify and establish performance improvement projects (PIPs)
• Structured problem-solving capabilities for middle management
• Daily operations review meetings
• 5S across the plant

A project “war room” was also set up to track the progress of the various best practices and PIPs, and to eliminate risks as they are identified along the way.

Loss and waste analysis
The loss and waste analysis data is updated monthly to identify the main loss points and improvement opportunities. With output PIPs a priority, the team identified 11 improvement projects in production efficiency, scrap and isolation rates, and unit and energy consumption.

Structured problem-solving
The team appointed PIP leaders who were assigned one or more improvement projects each. Financial savings have been estimated at more than three million yuan once each project achieves its target. So far, five projects have reached their objectives with combined savings worth 615,000 yuan. They include:

1. Reducing the isolation rate
2. Electricity consumption
3. Cleaning unit consumption
4. Tank breaking rate
5. A shorter transfer time

Building structured problem-solving capabilities for middle management

Daily operations review meeting
This meeting replaced the multidisciplinary team meetings (MDTs) to make it more productive. The first thing the TRACC implementation team did was standardize equipment fault names and establish MDT KPIs. This included equipment exception lists to review the performance and status of the equipment at the start of each day, and generate action plans to continuously improve performance through the DMAIC structured problem-solving tool.

5S
Zhejiang plant selected the worst orderly color printing room as the 5S pilot site. Within a few weeks and with everyone’s efforts, they managed to halt oil leakages, eliminate ground pollution and discard unnecessary items.

5S improvements: Before and after photos

Six months after the implementation of TRACC, the Zhejiang plant’s production volume increased by 7.6%. The scrap rate for the 500ml cans dropped by 24.68%, and for the 300ml cans it dropped by 5.08%. In addition, the million-consumption rate decreased by 0.93%, while the quality compensation was zero.

Overall performance improvement rate