APS US

Client background
Founded in 1962, Automated Packaging Systems is a privately owned, multinational company designing and manufacturing packaging systems and plastic packaging for a diverse range of industries including automotive, aerospace, medical devices, food, pharmaceutical, order fulfillment, and hardware components such as plumbing supplies, fasteners and fixings. They are the world leader in the supply of reliable, flexible and cost-effective plastic bag packaging systems, including genuine Autobag® baggers and pre-opened bags-on-a-roll, AirPouch™ void-fill and protective packing, and SidePouch™ packaging systems and specialty bags. Headquartered in the United States, Automated Packaging Systems also has a major presence in the UK and Europe, as well as manufacturing, sales, service and distribution locations around the globe.

Background to the challenge
The US operation like the European subsidiary is a successful company in a competitive market. Its owners were keen to remain as a market leader and convinced that TOC could offer the company a decisive competitive edge. The company had tried a number of times to implement TOC without any significant success. On the other side of the Atlantic the company’s European operation was enjoying considerable benefits from several TOC initiatives. The owners decided that the only way they could realise the same benefits would be to use the same consultants as Europe, Levee.

At the end of 2006 Levee met with senior management from the US operation to discuss how they could assist in improving operations with TOC.  After carrying out analysis and providing a proposal Levee were engaged to implement TOC throughout the US bag operation.

• The levels of success being enjoyed by the company were becoming increasingly difficult to maintain and relied on a high level of management intervention and fire fighting.
• There were synchronisation problems between processes and plants.
• If the efficiencies of individual equipment were examined they looked good but the operations as a whole were difficult to manage.
• The company had a healthy level of inventory but suffered because this inventory was not always the inventory that was required.
• Generally stress levels experienced within middle management were high.

The company has three bag production facilities in the US, two in Ohio and one in West Virginia. In Ohio one plant is responsible for producing film and printing it, and the other for converting this film into the finished bags. The West Virginia plant has no printing capability and primarily produces plain unprinted bags.

The challenge

• To maintain industry beating lead times and high delivery performance whilst growing the business and simultaneously reducing the levels of stress.
• Provide a set of measures that would allow managers to make faster and better business decisions

Ambitious targets

• Implement DBR (Drum Buffer Rope) in all three US plants
  1. TOC methodology for scheduling and sequencing work through a plant
  1. Implement DBM (Dynamic Buffer Management) in all three US plants
     1. TOC Methodology for managing stocks
  2. Replace current local focused operational measures with measures which considered the performance of the business as a whole.
  3. Increase the number of accepted expedite requests from customers
     • Ensuring expedites are delivered on time to the new due date reliably allowing sales to increase the collection of premium expedite fees

How Levee helped achieve these…

• Levee first met with the senior management team and the designated TOC champions in the organisation. They educated them in the fundamentals of TOC and developed a TOC solution design.
  • Next the entire workforce was trained in TOC fundamentals whilst a rigorous implementation project plan was developed to ensure the agreed design would be implemented in a timely manner.
    • Levee designed a training package to roll out across the organisation and trained a core of APS employees to deliver this training. This training was then delivered by APS staff to the employees.
    • Levee introduced the core team to CCPM (Critical chain project management) and facilitated them in the development of a robust implementation plan. The plan was then loaded onto CCPM software to monitor project progress. A weekly review meeting was set up to monitor this progress and take corrective actions to ensure the project came in on time.
  • Having got the project underway Levee moved from trainers to facilitators. The APS team met weekly to support each other and to track progress. A second weekly review with Levee was then held where gaps in knowledge were plugged and any work completed was reviewed to ensure completeness.
  • Levee’s approach from the start was to make the APS team self sufficient. This approach requires a strong champion and team and the work in selecting and training this team at the outset was a major contributing factor to the success APS would have.
    

  Results

  • Successful implementation of DBR, DBM and decision support measures
    • Far better synchronisation between processes
    • No waiting for product to finish processing on the previous operation. “Since the introduction of DBM we are almost never unable to launch a job because the material has not arrived from the film production and printing processes” Sam Mishler – Plant Manager
    • Far better visibility on the current status of an order
    • Customer services can reliably inform the customer of current progress.
    • It is clear to shop supervision when an order has become stuck and their intervention required to move it
    • Number of expedites accepted increased by 16%
    • Collection of Expedite fees increased by 54%
    • Shop scheduling and control far less stressful.
    • DBR and DBM reports developed with APS to bolt on to their existing ERP system
    • “These reports are miraculous” Gale Kephart – production planner
    • Better control of stock
    • Fewer emergency orders as stocked bags were available when required for despatch
    • All staff involved in the bag business trained in TOC fundamentals.