Improvement of a beer packaging line through Pareto analysis, root cause analysis and statistical tracking

Abstract

It is imperative for players in the beer industry to increase efficiency continuously to stay ahead of the competition. The prevailing performance of a beer packaging line in terms of engineering stops at the case study plant was below the target set by management, and therefore improvements were vital. This paper outlines the improvement of a beer packaging line through Pareto analysis, root cause analysis, and statistical tracking at a beer producer. The procedure commenced with gathering the data for the line and conducting a Pareto analysis on beer loss. It was found that bottle conveyors' downtime was caused by bottle breakages which was also resulting in beer loss. A root-cause analysis was conducted for high filler fallen bottle stoppages and possible solutions for process improvement were then formulated and the best solution was implemented. T-Tests were finally deployed as a means of statistical tracking and the results demonstrated a significant process improvement.