Consumer Case Study
Sugar Foods Corporation
Sugar Foods Corporation started as a privately held company in 1948 marketing bulk sugar and sugar packets to the food service industry. Since then
the company has added additional products including non-dairy creamers, salad croutons and stuffing products, packaged nuts, snacks and snack mixes,
as well as new sugar related products to both the retail and food service markets.
The company has manufacturing plants in Sun Valley, California, City of Commerce, California and Villa Rica, Georgia and employs over 600 personnel
in the United States.
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“Through the implementation of our continuous
improvement program, we were able to increase
productivity in key areas in excess of 10% by
working with CMTC.”
Mark Thomson
Vice President Operations
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Issue/Needs
Sugar Foods Corporation decided to implement a company wide
Continuous Improvement Program in order to drive out waste, reduce
costs, improve productivity and increase margins. This program would
introduce new processes that would allow the company to remain
competitive, increase market share and create a culture of continuous
improvement/Lean manufacturing as the company grows. Sugar
Foods’ goal was to increase productivity through education and
training in continuous improvement processes and techniques for all
600 employees across all locations.
Implementation Highlights
Sugar Foods Corporation met with CMTC consultants in June of 2005
to define the elements of the project to achieve the specified
objectives. The project scope included education and hands-on
training in problem solving skills, team facilitation with emphasis on
team leader skills and continuous improvement/Lean manufacturing
principles. The cross functional teams would work on the
improvement projects to gain an understanding of how to conduct
rapid improvement events (Kaizens) in order to achieve improvements
throughout the company’s manufacturing operations. The project
duration was from July 2005 through September 2006 and included
various continuous improvement events at all three plant locations.
These events included Lean manufacturing simulation training,
changeover and set up reduction, statistical process control training
and total productive maintenance training.
Improvement Description
During the project there was a total of over 200 hours of cross
functional team facilitation by CMTC in continuous improvement
techniques and principles. A Kaizen event was conducted in the sugar
packaging area resulting in 15% reduced rework and scrap as well as
increased productivity. A packaging line changeover/set up reduction
improvement project resulted in a reduction from 22 to 8 minutes or
72% in changeover time. This increased capacity was achieved on a
line historically required to run overtime in order to meet market
demands. Total Productive Maintenance improvements included
increased operator training and responsibilities for packaging
equipment operation as well as changes to preventative maintenance
programs.
All cross functional team members developed a good understanding of
problem solving methodologies and are applying it in other areas of
the company’s operations.
Financial and Investment Impact
There was $185,000 in annual cost savings realized as a result of the
productivity and scrap improvements made in the sugar and crouton
processing packaging areas. This savings is in addition to continuous
improvement skills gained by the team members who worked on the
different projects.
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