Performance management system works real-time

A real-time performance management system has been introduced by a food producer to help drive continued efficiency improvements in meeting the demands of a seasonal market with short lead times.

A real-time performance management system has been introduced by a food producer to help drive continued efficiency improvements in meeting the demands of a seasonal market with short lead times.

The demands of a seasonal market with short lead times, have led food producer Uniq to introduce a new real-time performance management (RPM) system to help drive continued efficiency improvements Uniq has operations in the UK and continental Europe.

It employs 8,200 people and turns over GBP 880 million.

It has nine locations (including six manufacturing sites) in the UK with revenues of over GBP 325 million.

The company supplies dressed salads, ready meals, sandwiches and other packaged fresh food products to major retailers and food service customers.

Having introduced lean manufacturing practices at its main UK salad-producing plant in Spalding, Uniq is installing MVI Technology's eventsengine RPM system in its preparation area and on all 14 packaging lines at the site to help drive further efficiency improvements.

The implementation, which began in November, is expected to be complete by the end of January 2006.

In a seasonal and highly competitive market, Uniq needs to be able to flex capacity without increasing costs or compromising efficiency and the company wanted a more reliable system to help identify specific areas for improvement activity.

Operators were using a manual system to collect performance data and whilst the review structure itself was robust, the data was prone to error and could be 24 hours out of date; unacceptable in a fresh food environment with short-term delivery demands.

The eventsengine system will enable the recording of events on the shopfloor as they happen and deliver instant access to information by shopfloor teams, allowing them to take control of their own performances.

The technology is supported by an implementation process that facilitates culture change by providing individuals the skills to change and improve.

The system will deliver real-time visibility of the operation and, as well as optimising capacity, will allow more accurate profiling of SKUs.

"It was important for the eventsengine system to be well-established in time for the summer, when we are at our busiest, so MVI's commitment to delivering a rapid ROI was very attractive," says James Faulkner, site operations manager and project champion.

Steve Smith, manufacturing manager at the Spalding site, says MVI's implementation methodology works because it focuses on people rather than just the software - he is anticipating significant returns as soon as the system goes live: "The justification for the project was a (minimum) 10% uplift in efficiency.

We can already see significant improvements just in labour costs and reduced wastage.".

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