Compared to discrete manufacturing businesses, the food and beverages industry has two unique characteristics:
The consumer side of the supply chain is organized with pull flow principles, with supermarkets implementing frequent replenishment and orders to suppliers.
Most of the raw material, work in progress and finished products are perishable.
As a consequence, the speed of production and the reduction of throughput times should be not only a competitive advantage, but mandatory to be on the market. Lean seems then to perfectly match the Food and Beverages industry constraints.
The reality is different, as the industry faces a number of challenges:
- Lack of optimization of the whole supply chain
- Insufficient flexibility of the organization and production equipments
- Unreliability of production machines and processes
- Time consuming and expensive changeover procedures.
- Silo organization, abundance of waste, especially in downstream processes (packing for example).
- Limited continuous improvement culture.
The KAIZEN Institute works with some of the biggest Food and Beverages companies in the world to tackle some of their business issues.
For more information please download case studies, and feel free to get in contact with us.
- Nestlé
- Unilever
- Cadbury Schweppes
- Bongrain
- Sadia
- Tchibo
- Bacardi
- Pernod Ricard
- Brown Forman
- Hochland
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