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Case Study:
Process Optimization / Regional Beverage Bottling Company
Better Performance, Less Effort
Major bottler improved productivity 8% by moving to real-time production data
Challenge:
Information latency and complexity impeded production efficiency
Production management at this bottler was a labor and spreadsheet-intensive process that was prone to inaccuracies and precluded fast, optimal responses to changes in demand, machine downtime, and other issues. The impact of this process:
- Production inefficiencies: Frequent SKU changes on the production lines reduced output and were costly. In a single shift, lines were often switched from one SKU to another, and then back again
- Data integrity issues: Dozens of SKUs, some described by multiple product numbers, but no unified coding system, resulting in mis-matched data and difficulty in managing costs
- Extreme latency: Production reports, in lengthy, complex data tables, were delivered too late to impact production and were difficult to discern how to improve long-term productivity.
Although the company was very profitable, it was investing more than 4,000 hours per annum gathering and reporting production data. These reports were error-prone and too late to address live production issues. The impact of these reports was diminished by mismatched SKU codes, poor granularity, and massive number tables that made it difficult to extract actionable insights. Further, production data, stored on multiple PCs, was vulnerable to data loss and security breaches.
Solution:
Four steps to achieve up-to-the-minute business intelligence, and more
1. Data Standardization: To increase the value of the reports, Teranalytics created a unified, granular coding system to deliver more precise production information, new operational metrics to describe production line performance, and business rules to manage current and future products.
2. Data Collection: To reduce information latency and improve accuracy, the Team created a new tool that enables the supervisors to easily enter production line information directly into the Data Server from their PCs as they collect it.
3. Data Storage: To enable real-time data access for production line managers and senior management, as well as ensure data security, the Data Server consolidates the information into the Data Warehouse, ready for immediate analysis.
4. Business Intelligence: Teranalytics integrated the new Data Warehouse with PowerBI to provide up-to-the-minute visualized information tuned to role-specific needs. Supervisors are able to identify and remediate problems immediately and avoid unnecessary line changes; senior management has immediate, clear visibility to actionable insights.
Results:
Real-time, visualized reporting to guide immediate optimization
With the help of Teranalytics, the client made the move from massive spreadsheet-based, latency-plagued reports to real-time production management.
- Real-time, visual production data to line managers, to inform proactive actions, rapid responses
- Unified, granular SKU visibility to enable tighter production management and to meet demand
- Zero information latency via real-time KPI dashboards for the Management Team
- Streamline reporting to minimize engineering time spent reporting, improve data accuracy
- Ensure data integrity and security
- Ultimately, to optimize production while minimizing waste and downtime.
Client Feedback:
“The impact of real-time, visualized data on our business was immediate and profound. Teranalytics enabled us to increase productivity 8% in less than 2 months, and set the stage for further productivity improvements.”
– Production Manager-
