Packaging gets lean and volumes grow
Make processes smarter, with less waste and lower costs; be able to quickly develop not only new products and services, but also new solutions; be sustainable and environmentally conscious: these are some of the ingredients implemented by FAG Artigrafiche under the aegis of general manager Sergio Vairetto to keep consolidated and further expand its leadership in the papermaking market.
To support her on that path, the Lean World Class® methodology Bonfiglioli Consulting.
Fag Artigrafiche is the company of the Artigrafiche Reggiane & LAI SpA group that specializes in designing papermaking solutions in the world of laminated cardboard packaging and industrial display for medium and large runs. To give its customers advanced papermaking research and development services, FAG created the FagLab division dedicated to research, development and innovation. Indeed, the papermaking industry is a very specialized world not only because of its complexity, but also because of the type of processing and market.
OF STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE TO CUSTOMERS, PACKAGING ENABLES POINT-OF-SALE POSITIONING OF THE CUSTOMER'S PRODUCT. The image that is conveyed through packaging induces people to choose one product over another to the point that, se- cording to statisti- ces, damaged packaging results in the product itself being discarded.
My main advantage when I came to FAG was that I did not belong to this world," Sergio Vairetto begins, "which allowed me to look at the company and its processes with new eyes and to experience approaches characteristic of other sectors. From automotive, for example, I brought all my experience in terms of industrial process management and control, both from the quality control side and from the design and process analysis side. And the introduction of a lean approach, which is little experienced in the world of papermaking in Italy.
The meeting with Bonfiglioli Consulting resulted in the SlimFAG corporate reorganization project.
In fact, my efforts in this regard had begun much earlier, with a delicate operation to ferry the company from a strictly industrial connotation to a highly innovative one, through a whole series of initiatives in R&D that generated a positive effect in the satisfaction of our customers. In this way, we have achieved an increase in turnover in the order of about 20%, rising from 36 million euros to 52 million in the space of a few years. However, this increase generated a saturation of available production capacity: the next step was therefore to optimize and figure out how to do better what had always been done. More concretely, our main goal was to achieve more volume with the same production capacity. We started with an analysis of the status quo, the starting situation, with an assessment of the main areas of loss. The issues, described by objective numerical analysis, were then easily transferred to the base of the pyramid, to operators and department heads. A set-up time reduction of three minutes, which apparently might seem like a minimal value, translated over a one-year time frame and across multiple machines, shows an efficiency effect that, turned into volumes, is impressive. The real change, therefore, was to introduce a method of reading the data that would allow focus on the most critical areas. In applying the methodology in general, on the other hand, managerial commitment is crucial, although it is not sufficient on its own.
YOU NEED TO LEAN ON AN APPROPRIATE LEVEL OF TEAM THAT WORKS AUTONOMOUSLY AND IS ABLE TO FREE THE HIGHER-UPS FROM OVER-INVOLVEMENT ON THE OPERATIONAL THRUST.
Not only from the point of view of pure application of methods, but also from the point of view of cultural setting and pushing for continuous improvement actions. And you then need to help all resources to change their mindset. Not surprisingly, the biggest difficulty in implementing the competitive 5S, a lean methodology for engaging operatives on issues such as neat, clean, and standardized workstations, according to the principle of "having a place for everything and everything in its place," has been precisely sustenance, that is, being able to give constancy to improvement over the long term, continue to make people feel motivated and responsible after the initial enthusiasm has waned."
Achievements:
