At Casa Sauza, implementing TPM (Total Productive Maintenance) took output per worker from 1,500 to 12,000 boxes, cut major equipment breakdowns from roughly 2,900 a year to fewer than 20, and helped the company climb to the #2 spot on Mexico's Great Place to Work ranking — all without a single layoff tied to the methodology itself.
When Casa Sauza began implementing TPM, output stood at roughly 1,500 boxes per person over a given period. Today, that number has reached 12,000 boxes per person — an eightfold increase in productivity.
Under the original reporting method, Casa Sauza's bottling operation was believed to run at 95% efficiency. When the team recalculated using the Japanese TPM methodology, the actual figure was 15%. By 2018, that figure had climbed to 72% — a fivefold increase in real productivity, and a 30% reduction in cost per box.
Casa Sauza defines a breakdown as any stoppage longer than 15 minutes. Eleven years ago, the plant averaged about 2,900 of these breakdowns per year. Last year, that number was under 20 — a reduction the team continues to push further, targeting a 50% year-over-year decrease.
TPM is not a headcount-reduction strategy, though its side effects can look that way from the outside. When Casa Sauza began this journey, the unionized bottling workforce numbered 80 people. Today, that team is 30 people — technicians, not operators, with far more autonomy and a more defined professional profile. The role changed enough that Casa Sauza renamed the position itself: Bottling Technicians, reflecting a shift from simple machine operation to full autonomous management of the line.
Implementing TPM meant working with deeply rooted habits and traditions. Casa Sauza's approach wasn't to change the culture outright, but to redirect it toward a simpler, more enjoyable way of working — one people could genuinely engage with. Earning that trust came first; the results followed.
Today, line operators manage changeovers, release product without defects, and work with tablets and computers to run the line with real autonomy — authority that used to sit entirely with supervisors. That shift in empowerment, more than any single metric, is what Casa Sauza points to as the deeper change TPM brought to the plant floor.
A few years ago, Casa Sauza didn't rank in Mexico's top 100 workplaces at all. From there, the company moved to 100th, then 59th, then 29th — and today holds the #2 spot nationally. For the team, that ranking matters as much as any productivity number: it's independent confirmation, validated through a third-party survey, that a smaller, more productive workforce is also a genuinely satisfied one.
Casa Sauza's ambition extends beyond the tequila industry: to be recognized as a global benchmark among spirits producers for productivity, quality, and safety — a standard-setter not just regionally, but alongside its parent operations in Japan. On the production floor specifically, a line currently run by 6 bottling technicians (down from 22 eleven years ago) is targeted to eventually run with just 3 — with the same team members taking on higher-skilled roles rather than being displaced.
Output per worker rose from 1,500 to 12,000 boxes, real efficiency increased from 15% to 72%, and cost per box dropped by 30% — all measured using Japanese TPM benchmarking standards rather than the company's original internal metrics.
TPM itself is not designed as a layoff strategy, though Casa Sauza's bottling workforce did shrink from 80 to 30 people as roles shifted toward higher-skilled, more autonomous technician positions rather than traditional machine operation.
Casa Sauza went from being unranked in Mexico's top 100 workplaces to 100th, then 59th, then 29th, and currently holds the #2 position nationally, based on an independent, third-party employee survey.
Casa Sauza aims to be recognized as a global benchmark among spirits producers — not just within the tequila industry — for its productivity, quality, and safety standards, and to extend collaboration with its parent operations in Japan.
Yes. Casa Sauza now regularly hosts other companies, large and small, to exchange best practices — a shift from a previously closed-door approach, based on the view that operational knowledge is hard to copy without also replicating the underlying culture and leadership system.