Augos Factory / Proof / Food packer
Case study · Food & beverage
Two faults cost 392 hours a quarter. Now they cost 27.
A printer and a filler kept stopping a packing line for hours at a time. Nine months later, the same two faults barely register.
The problem
A line that stopped more than it ran
The packing line was paid for 2,208 hours in its baseline quarter. Unplanned stops took 65.5% of that time, and only 19.2% turned into good output.
What the record suggested
Two faults dominated. The downstream printer stopped the line 36 times for 209.5 hours, nearly six hours a stop. Filler faults cost another 182.5 hours. Fix those two first, the costliest first.
Six hours a stop is the signature of a fault nobody can diagnose quickly.
The fix
Fixed in order of what they cost
Maintenance worked through the printer and the filler, starting with the costliest fault.
Three quarters later, with the same 2,208 paid hours, printer faults cost 15.6 hours. The printer still stopped 84 times, but each stop lasted about 11 minutes.
Electrical filler faults fell from 141.6 hours to 0.9. Mechanical filler faults fell from 40.9 hours to 10.7.
Holding the standard
Held, with the next fault already named
In the last two months on record, printer faults stayed under 6 hours a month: 5.4, then 3.8.
The record already shows the next fault to chase: product pick-up, at 45.5 hours in the latest month.
The stop record put a name and a cost on both faults, so they could be fixed in order of what they cost. It shows the next one before it grows.
Questions
This case, answered
Why did each printer stop take so long?
Nobody could diagnose the fault quickly, so each stop ran for hours. Once it was named and costed, it could be fixed. The printer still stops, but for about 11 minutes.
How were the two faults chosen?
By cost. Together they took 392 hours a quarter, more than anything else on the line.
What does this case leave out?
A rand value: the plant has not shared its sales values, so the case reports hours. Plant and product names are withheld.
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