Production optimisation as a cost-saving exercise – Winbox

The challenge

A cardboard manufacturing group with several plants decided to implement a continuous improvement process throughout their sales, production and distribution chain. The aim was twofold and was achieved harmoniously: an improvement in customer service and a cost reduction in the use of its resources.

This was achieved using a fast and flexible tool, which provided a number of benefits.  It allowed them to make decisions based on facts or correct assumptions; to provide alternatives when faced with critical manufacturing situations; to improve the internal organisation of the plant, thereby avoiding unnecessary overloads and allowing them to react quickly to unforeseen events such as anomalous incidents or emergency orders. They chose Winbox from AIS.

The project

The project was undertaken in two phases: firstly, to address the optimisation of the manufacturing process for the corrugating machine press and, secondly, to include the rest of the plant.

The reason was to focus the first phase on reducing waste paper, which is very important in the sector. Having achieved this first step, the second phase was to involve both the production department and the entire plant. The cardboard manufacturing company was very clear about it providing both a product and a service. Therefore, it wanted not only to reduce production costs, but to improve the service to the final customer. This was achieved by providing the customer with medium-term information about plant capacity to improve daily decision making.

The result

Thanks to the project and implementation of Winbox, the cardboard manufacturing company achieved the twin goals that had been proposed. This resulted in the below improvements, among others:

• An improvement of 9% in delivery performance to customers.
• Standardisation in the distribution of delays to improve the average by more than 50%.
• One day was gained in the ability to accept orders, changing from 4 to 3 days.
• The percentage of waste in the plant was reduced, due to improved implementation of orders and optimal planning.

In an environment of increasingly complex sales and work orders, these figures were a remarkable achievement in the continuous improvement project. Winbox provided an increase in competitiveness, as well as efficiency in the treatment of work-order flow.

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