4. The results
This section reports the results of the three months pilot. We distinguish the following elements:
a) the degree to which the planned cycles have been executed
b) the manufacturing regularity and the resulting improvements in yield and quality
c) customer service
d) inventory and work in process
e) organizational consequences
f) financial consequences
These elements will be discussed here subsequently.
Cyclic planning
The cyclic planning has been realized rather precisely. The starting point was kept, the run-sizes
(in number of tanks) of the cyclic blends were kept. The disturbances in extraction led to a runsize
variation in the breathing blend of up to 10% . The finishing time of the fixed part of the
cycle did not vary more than 15 minutes.
Manufacturing regularity, quality and yield
There are two elements of manufacturing regularity. In the first place the cyclical regularity of
the fixed cyclical sequence. This makes it possible to give more attention to the change-overs. In
the variable period the sequence is also kept as constant as possible. The second element of
manufacturing regularity is the regularity of in-process times. The in-process times with an
important quality impact are the time between extraction and centrifugation, the time between
centrifugation and packaging and the time between packaging and freezing. The standard
deviation of the time before centrifugation and the time between centrifugation and packaging
have both been reduced with about two hours. The time between packaging and freezing has also
been reduced because there are now 6 freezing tunnels in use which makes it possible to
synchronize packaging and freezing.
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There was indeed a small yield increase and a substantial yield variation reduction. The people
involved tend to subscribe these changes to the introduction of cyclic production. But the pilot
has been too short to draw final conclusions here.