Cement Manufacturing
This client was one of very few cement manufacturing plants to boast its own lime mine, the key mineral in manufacturing cement.
Whilst the main operations of kilning lime and other ingredients to produce cement powder mix used little human resource; the packing operations, either into large wholesale bulk bags or the more common bags of cement, was highly labour intensive.
By observing each stage of the process, time standards were established as to how long packing should take, and with how many labour hours. This also highlighted the causes of inefficiencies in the work flow. These problems were then monitored, measured and addressed through management systems to gradually reduce or eliminate the causes of downtime.
From this initiative a solid resource requirement plan was developed, which could be referred to, based on how much of each product type was required. The client was then able to crew each packing batch with the correct number of people, ensuring productivity targets were achieved.
This, and other initiatives, resulted in improvements across the mine and factory which achieved US $2.25M in additional annual profit.
