Continuous Improvement at Casa Sauza

por Leonardo Murillo Leonardo Murillo | Dec 25, 2021 12:49:12 AM

continuous improvement at casa sauza

In Casa Sauza, we have successfully achieved during 8 years what we call the Focused Improvement Pillar. We want to share part of the learning experience that has led us to win the Excellence award. In this article we will describe, step by step, how have we come to achieve it and how exactly do we continue using the TPM methodology to take our efforts to the next level and thus, compete for the Consistency award. We hope that these information will help you find the way to implement continuous improvement in your company.

Our goal is to become a World Class company by 2020. We also participate in an improvement system called SAI, which includes the ISO9001, ISO14001, OSHAS18001 y ISO22000, as well as ISR, Industria Limpia, BASC System and coming soon, C-TPAT y TPM at an Excellence in the Agricultural Area level. All of it as a part of the Continuous Improvement system that we carry out in our company.

How do we implement the tools of Continuous Improvement in Casa Sauza?

Before starting to talk about the process that "Casa Sauza" experienced on this matter per se, I would first like to highlight that it all meant a whole CULTURAL CHALLENGE, for myself as well as for all the collaborators.

I am going back a few years. This process was implemented 8 years ago, our objective was to win the Excellence award, which took us approximately 4 years to get. Our management department analyzed the company's situation at the time, and started visualizing where did it want Casa Sauza to be in the following years. Based on this, they decided to implement the TPM tool (Total Productive Maintenance) according to what was most compatible with the company.

After designing the master plan, all of the pillars started designing their own, following the same objective. Without disregarding the rest of the pillars, one main pillar is the Continuous Improvement one, since it is the foundation rock in which the company relies on to better and faster differentiate itself from its competition.

We must also mention that the company's collaborators were -ever since- able to participate directly and almost immediately in sharing their ideas with the company in order to improve its processes.

Continuous Improvement Step by Step

I will now briefly describe some of the steps that have been carried out at Casa Sauza to make use of the Continuous Improvement tool and I will also mention the benefits achieved with its implementation:

  1. We first made research on the situation of the Continuous Improvement tool back then and checked if there were any tools that we were already using.
  2. We started designing the portfolio of the first Continuous Improvement tools that the methodology suggests applying.
  3. We trained our facilitators or promoters of the Continuous Improvement tool, in order to permeate this knowledge throughout all of our collaborators.
  4. Training program on the Continuous Improvement tools within the whole company.
  5. Encourage all leaders to use the these tools when facing a problem or improvement.
  6. A system for the management of improvement cases was designed in order to identify each of them, and to make them measurable.
  7. Creation of system to measure the company's losses in order to better solve them by making use of the Continuous Improvement tools.

 This were some of the steps that we carried out in order to implement the tools and give our company and advantage facing our competition, since we are still working on the rest of the implementation plan where, without a doubt, the Continuous Improvement tools play a fundamental role. We have achieved several improvements in the company by the collaborators using these methods, since they help staying focused. Also, the results are quite objective and measurable along the process.

I hope this information becomes useful to you so you can foresee the challenges that a company faces when implement a Continuous Improvement system and be better prepared for them.

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