Visual Factory Techniques Keep Plant Humming

There are four sugar packaging production lines at Imperial Sugar’s cane sugar refinery at Gramercy, La., being run over three eight-hour shifts by 12 different operators – each with a quota to fill. From time to time, the packaging machines have to be changed over or reset to fill a different size bag. Every minute used to make the changeover costs hundreds of bags of sugar in lost production.

Adding to the challenge, each machine operator has his or her own set of tools and tricks for making the necessary machine adjustments and troubleshooting problems that inevitably arise. Unique adjustments made by one operator, however, might complicate things for another one in the next shift.

Raylene Carter, manager of Imperial Sugar Company’s sugar refinery at Gramercy explained what was happening in the plant’s small packaging operation. “We discovered that different mechanics were fixing things differently. For example, they were making an adjustment that was supposed to be the width of the wrench. The trouble was, everyone used a different size wrench.”

Inconsistencies such as these can cause production line hiccups and unnecessary downtime in a fast-paced, demand-driven environment.

To make sure machine changeovers go off without a hitch, the Gramercy refinery is implementing a program that makes use of Lean Visual Factory techniques.

“The purpose of Lean Visual Factory is to keep things very visual and simple,” said Ralph Clements, vice president of manufacturing and engineering for Imperial. “It’s a technique where you use posters or illustrations to quickly explain operating or process instructions and keep workers from the time-consuming task of digging through a manual.”

Members of the Gramercy packaging improvement team came up with a quick reference idea to keep operators on the line and help troubleshoot problems during changeovers.

They developed laminated sheets with illustrations, photos and step-by-step instructions for making adjustments on the various machines. These visual tools are being used in combination with training sessions for each of the machine operators and maintenance workers.

“When you have a machine changeover, you want to make sure that it’s repeatable and you do it the same way every single time,” said John Gerace, packaging team manager at the Gramercy refinery. “These visual instructions will help ensure consistency, reducing adjustments after the changeover because everyone is doing it the same way.”

Visual factory techniques also can be used to help employees sustain efficiency through an orderly workplace, such as marking out the exact placement of tools, arrows on the floor to guide production flow or outlining an area for precise pallet placement.

The Gramercy team’s Lean Visual Factory efforts are an offshoot of a recent seven-week program  that incorporated Six Sigma disciplines to improve the plant’s small packaging operation.