The Importance of Focused Improvement at Sauza

Hi! My name is Jaime Galván Raygoza and I want to tell you about my experience working at Sauza, as a leader of the packaging area.

Kaizen Tools and Continuous Improvement

I'm happy to share with you the importance that Focused Improvement has on our processes. We use a wide range of Kaizen tools, which have made our production equipments more flexible and reliable. The Kaizen method is a quality tool that seeks the continuous improvement of an organization, including the people who work in it. It comes from the Japanese philosophy, like Monozukiri. Both are applied in Sauza.

Thanks to the help of these improvement tools, we've managed to correct some abnormalities that have taken place in our processes. I must mention that there are specific tools for each kind of event that occurs, from placing the equipment considering basic conditions, to making an improvement in the equipment itself. We do all this so that our productivity becomes more efficient and increasingly grows, by doing so, we're able to reach the maximum performance of our equipment. This is how we achieve our goals year after year, which are set by management.

Solve the problem from its roots

One of the tools that's been key to us and that we've used in the area of ​​packaging, is this methodology that helps us better understand the problem and the operating principles of the equipment. This helps us identify the root cause of a failure and thus, get rid of the problem for good. It's advisable to start with this methodology before applying traditional tools, since 6 Gen teaches above all, to follow a logic to think and analyze problems.

Thanks to this methodology, we've achieved great results, such as the elimination of failure modes and defects as soon as they appear, as well as to learn more about the equipment and its operating principles, which is the main information that we need to know so that the equipment is always kept working at its basic main conditions.

Kaizen Tools allow us to keep an agile system that responds to any event or circumstance. Before Kaizen, we used to have many line stoppages with the same failures, with no positive results, but by implementing this methodology, we've come to learn more about our equipments and optimize their operation. We are also now continually offered training on this methodology and we can always count on the great team-work that builds Casa Sauza up.

Thanks to all this, Sauza has managed to distinguish itself from other companies of its same industry and I can say, with pride and satisfaction, that I've been a part of this great company for 20 years now.

If you'd like to learn more about our production processes, come to Sauza and take one of our guided tours to our production plant, so you learn in-site all about us, our philosophy, our people and our processes.