Beam Suntory’s distillery in Spain realizes €1.8 million raw material cost saving

Before the introduction of the TRACC Value Chain Improvement Solution in 2012, the Segovia plant used traditional continuous improvement (CI) methods and followed a project approach to achieve incremental performance improvement. While this yielded some good results, several challenges still existed, including:

• The approach resulted in ‘‘pockets’’ of excellence, which meant achievements in best practice execution were dispersed across the plant
• Diminished engagement by some employees
• Nonalignment between functions
• Plant effectiveness not fully realized due to limited workforce involvement in projects and meetings
• Plant management wanted to achieve high performance in a systematic, standardized way

• The principal metric for the distillery’s performance is grain yield, so the TRACC rollout comprised all the ‘‘Make’’ TRACC Best Practices, except Setup Time Reduction which only applied to the bottling plants
• Initial best practice implementation involved Leading and Managing Change, Teamwork and 5S to create awareness and build unity across all teams
• 5S allowed the teams to witness the evolution and improvement of the plant first-hand
• Today, the most essential TRACC Best Practices to drive performance results are Asset Care, Autonomous Maintenance and Focused Improvement

• €1.8 million hard savings on raw materials after TRACC rollout
• 4.3% improvement in grain yield
• New team autonomy has empowered all employees to make decisions, offer suggestions, and present improvement ideas
• A continuous improvement culture is now the site’s driving force