Augos Factory / Proof / Beverage bottler
Case study · Food & beverage
Everyone blamed the filler. The stop record pointed at the air.
A bottling line stopped 2,007 times in one month and ran for barely a third of its paid time. The biggest single loss wasn't on the line at all.
The problem
A line that never found its rhythm
In its first full month on Augos Factory, the filling line logged 2,007 unplanned stops across 461.8 paid hours. It was available for just 33.5% of that time.
When a filler stops that often, the filler gets the blame. Technicians worked on it, operators worked around it, and the line kept stopping.
What the record suggested
The biggest breakdown wasn't the filler. It was the compressed-air supply dropping out: 19 stops costing 34.5 hours, 7.5% of paid time. Add the waits for bottles, and 90.8 hours went to feeding the filler, not the filler itself. Fix the air first.
From the floor, an air drop-out looks like a machine fault. Each one was reset and handled as its own small breakdown.
The fix
Fix the air, then put the record on the wall
Engineering fixed the compressed-air supply. A live Augos display went up where the whole team could see it, so every stop showed as it happened.
In month 2 the line lost 46 minutes to air, down from 34.5 hours. By month 4 it was 18 minutes, and availability had risen from 33.5% to 36.5%.
Holding the standard
Two years on, still fixed
The record kept checking, month after month. The air supply cost 6 minutes in month 23, and none at all in the latest month on record.
The plant had the same filler, the same technicians and the same air system before. What it lacked was a reason on every stop, added up in one place.
Only then did 19 "filler faults" add up to one utility problem costing 34.5 hours a month.
Questions
This case, answered
Why did everyone blame the filler?
From the floor, an air drop-out looks like a machine fault. The filler stops, someone resets it, and it runs again. Each stop looked like its own small breakdown.
Why put the record on a screen?
A live screen gives operators, supervisors and maintenance one shared view of the line as it runs. Everyone sees the same stops, in the same words, at the same time.
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.
Find losses like these on your own line.
Thirty minutes with a manufacturing specialist, on your own lines and products.
- Every stop timed and given a reason
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