How to Speed Up Changeovers in F&B and CPG Production Lines

Most Food & Beverage and CPG manufacturing plants are running multiple products per line per day, including varieties of the same products as well as entirely different ones. All these different products being produced on the same line have resulted in many more production line changeovers in the factory compared to even just a few years ago—requiring processes, people and equipment to adapt.

With capitalization of new equipment out of the question in this current “hold your cash” world, manufacturers can use improved changeover procedures to help reduce manufacturing cost per unit.

The number of changeovers a plant can perform is limited by the amount of time it spends on each changeover. Most plants today spend a significant amount of time on them between runs - with many labor hours spent cleaning, adjusting, and verifying machine setup - translating into non-production time and higher costs per unit. Issues not addressed properly during changeovers can cause longer startup cycles, more rejected product, and increased machine malfunctions. It stands to reason that the more often changeovers occur, the higher the likelihood of negative effects.

Key obstacles include manual processes, which are more time consuming and prone to increased operator errors and quality risks, and the time required to train operators to constantly perform new changeovers.

For example, one of our customers adjusted its production run to half the amount of product, allowing it to change flavors and sizes on the line to gain a more flexible production inventory level. However, the move from one line changeover per week to six line changeovers per week doubled the plant’s equipment failure rate. This slowed down production, increased product rejects, and also resulted in extremely high operator overtime.

When analyzing the cause of this, the company found that ineffective changeovers was at the top of the list. Moving to six changeovers per week brought many new operators into the process, but there was a lack of changeover procedures to guide them. Additionally, the new operators did not have the ‘tribal knowledge’ or expertise of the original operators, resulting in more errors and lost time during line changeovers.

To address this challenge, the manufacturer implemented new digitized work instructions for changeovers in conjunction with its GE Vernova’s Proficy Plant Applications to guide each worker through the tasks required to get the line ready for the next product or size change. These digitized instructions captured the tribal knowledge of the company’s most experienced operators to help make every worker “the best worker” and incorporated best practices into the work processes for faster and better production setup. As a result, the company reduced its line changeover time by 25% and line start issues by 50% for significant time and cost savings.

The significant advantages of digitized operator instructions include:

In today’s environment where there are constant changeovers, manufacturers need to formalize line changeovers and give them the same attention they would for a production run. They can then leverage the power of information to quicken changeovers, hence driving increased productivity for a better bottom line. The use of digitized work instructions helps systematize best practices and provide valuable information and critical visibility into changeover processes, including how long each actually takes and where and why issues occur— enabling improvements for effective production planning.

Improve Line Changeover Processes to Drive Efficiency and Operator Accountability

Recently, a food manufacturer implemented digitized task management with its Proficy Smart Factory MES and turned its process improvement team onto the data. The team discovered that the same tasks were taking different amounts of time to perform, depending on the operator shift, which pointed to the need for better training. Additionally, it discovered that moving through the production mix worked better in one direction than others; for example, reducing bottle size was faster and easier than increasing bottle size.

Using the information from Proficy to gain better insight about its changeovers, the company incorporated training and also changed its production to go from largest bottle size to smallest bottle size, reducing the overall time of a line changeover by 35%. The significant improvement resulted in less operator overtime, fewer product rejects, and reduced equipment failures—driving speed and production efficiency.

Profit from Rapid and Reliable Line Changeovers

As some leading companies have begun to discover, the key to speeding up line changeovers without compromising quality relies upon guiding operators through changeover processes with digitized work instructions. The faster that operators can set up machines and recipes correctly, the more efficiently manufacturers can produce many different products on the same line without changeover delays and errors—recovering valuable production time and delivering consistent product quality.

Furthermore, rapid and reliable changeovers enabled by digitized task management help manufacturers leverage improved predictability to drive proactive planning of resources, including the reduction of excess inventory. The critical insight manufacturers gain into real-time production helps drive increased agility across the plant—accelerating profit margins for a stronger bottom line.