CASE STUDY

Cleaning Products Manufacturer Increases Profits and Realizes a 6 Month ROI

Background

A multi-national household and laundry detergent company was seeking opportunities to reduce manufacturing costs while simultaneously increasing production output to meet demand with a project ROI of no more than 6 months. This project succeeded meeting the objectives.

OBJECTIVES

For this detergent manufacturer, the mixing operation was the target process unit identified as having the most potential for better operations. The goal was to improve consistency, accuracy, reduce waste and rework along with increasing production capacity. In addition, the facility had multiple similar mixing operations so standardized methods were extremely desirable. To accomplish this, our objective was to:

Reduce/Eliminate operator errors
Increase mixer efficiency and utilization
More accurate dosing of ingredients
Reduce raw material waste and lost production time (downtime)
Electronically capture manual additions
Create standardized system functionality
Develop and implement programming standards for the HMI interface and PLC environments meeting current “Best Practices”
Provide a User Interface that the Operators could comfortably adapt to and accept
Design, develop and deploy an ISA S-88 Batch solution for all plant Mixers
Setup and deploy automatic Batch reports to provide historical data references of mixer production and raw material consumption
Produce tangible financial ROI within 6 months to justify the project

CHALLENGE

Malisko needed to help produce financial ROI within 6 months. Our team created an implementation plan to match existing Mixer functionality, re-tool inefficient operations and develop a ‘class-based’ recipe and formulation solution that could eventually be applied across the other multi-use mixers within the plant. In conjunction, Malisko had to analyze the existing industrial network and control system infrastructures while improving control system efficiency. Finally, Malisko addressed the challenge of reducing operational and transactional risks for the target production system as this was a key priority of the client.

SOLUTION

Malisko leveraged its 20+ years of batch experience based on industry-accepted best practices; developed the client/server batch solution off-site and created a development environment that could be reused for each subsequent Mixer project, thereby improving system delivery efficiencies and reducing capital costs for future Mixer control upgrade projects. Malisko coordinated Technical efforts including the project design, development and testing with the client’s engineering, production, maintenance and IT groups. Malisko worked closely with IT on all network and security appliances and network hardware configurations to securely and robustly communicate with the upgraded control system.

RESULTS

Malisko successfully delivered a Multi-Use Mixer Batch solution within 6 months from project inception. The first product batch met all quality specs and was released as saleble product. Production experienced a significant reduction in operator errors and significant reduction in product loss due to errors. Operator interaction with the control system was reduced through automation thus allowing better use of their time. Batch cycle times were reduced causing an increase in equipment utilization and an increase in the number of ‘batches per week’. Over-dosing of ingredients in each Batch was greatly reduced with a savings of over $700,000 annually per Mixer.

Malisko’s structured approach to designing and deploying ISA S-88 batch programming standards, meeting best practices methodologies, provided immediate financial gains and allowed the client to eventually replicate and implement the solution across its Mixers within the plant. Additionally, the Batch solution helped to reduce overall plant risk for Operations by establishing an interface with uniform functionality, look and feel, and more intuitive troubleshooting for Engineering and Maintenance personnel while providing on-going cost savings on utilities, raw materials, and previously unrecoverable operational costs attributed to human error. By working with the client in the concept and design phases, and by understanding the business needs and desired business outcomes, Malisko aligned and delivered a Mixer batch solution that has been recognized by the client as a ‘Best-Practice’, and is now being implemented as the ‘Mixer Batch’ standard in its other domestic production facilities.

LEARN MORE

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