Greencore raises its game

A real-time online monitoring system at Greencore's cakes and desserts factory in Hull has delivered a step-change in factory efficiency by shifting responsibility for performance management from senior executives to the shopfloor.

The Events Engine system, which was trialled at Hull in 2006 and is now being rolled out across the business, captures data automatically and displays it on screens to shopfloor staff in real-time so they can act on it immediately. While the factory had always captured data from its equipment, staff used to have to take read-outs and then manually key in the data into central IT systems for retrospective analysis by managers, said md Paul Rhodes.

"The Events Engine has been the vehicle around which we have built new operations processes that have allowed us to monitor and measure agreed key performance indicators daily."

He added: "The results have been impressive with massive improvements in production efficiency, including a 20% increase in overall equipment effectiveness [OEE], a 40% reduction in downtime and a 12% reduction in changeovers, a 14% increase in productivity and a 10% reduction on labour cost per unit."

Equally radical improvements have been achieved at Greencore Grocery via the introduction of a sales and operations planning (SOP) system, which has helped drive double-digit reductions in stock, while simultaneously increasing service levels.

The firm, which has slashed costs across all of its sites via its 'total lowest cost' programme, said SOP had led to a 16% drop in raw material stocks and a 12% drop in finished goods stocks at its Selby factory in the past year. This, coupled with cycle planning and a new 'ABC' system to categorise stock keeping units had also improved availability and reduced changeovers, said marketing director Matthew Jenkins.

A new system enabling more rapid review and dissemination of 'short interval control' data had also helped deliver significant improvements in OEE in the past year, he said. Productivity at the £100M turnover site, which makes sauces, pickles, condiments and soft drinks, had shot up in the last year thanks to a major staff training drive, he said.

This had also helped reduce short-term absenteeism by almost 50% over the same period.