Real-time analytics delivers savings of $3.4 million.
Outdated, Cumbersome Quality Systems Fail to Deliver Insights
Thomas, the corporate quality manager at a major, multi-plant foods company, was looking for better way to get real time insights into data. While some plants had home-grown statistical process control systems for package weights, others had paper based processes. Overall, their systems were outdated and cumbersome. Thomas felt his hands were tied because he was always dealing with data that was several days old.
Rear-view Mirror Perspective Results in Product Holds, Costly Sort and Repackaging
He was frustrated because he knew his “rear-view mirror” perspective meant that he was reacting to things that had already happened. When process changes were not immediately detected, it forced him to put product on hold and conduct costly sorting and repackaging efforts. Thomas also knew the company was shipping overweight packages, giving away product without getting paid for it. No one knew how much that was costing the company. These meant the company missed customer delivery dates, damaged customer trust, and increasing their product giveaway.
Real-time Mobile Solution Yields Substantial Pay Back
The company had recently invested in mobile devices for their quality auditors. The mobile devices were an affordable solution to collecting data in the clean room environment. The company turned to Hertzler Systems for a cost effective solution for deploying real-time weight control utilizing the mobile technology.
Hertzler Systems provided a cost-effective real-time solution that adapted to the needs of each plant. Reducing product holds and costly sorting and repackaging, and significantly reducing product give away, allowed the company to realize a savings of $225,000 in nine months at one facility and approximately $3.4 million across all implemented plants. Thomas now has the accurate, timely information his team needs to focus the organization on today instead of spending their time on what happened several days in the past.
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