Making Quick Format Changes in a Bottling Production Line at Casa Sauza

With Casa Sauza's philosophy of “continuous improvement” the challenge is to do more with less. This is the case on our packaging line where we produce several types of bottles in the same line. Would you like to learn how we decreased the time to change our bottling presentation from 60 minutes to less than 7?

How long does it take to change format on the same production line?

One of the main losses we experienced in the packaging area was during the bottling format changes. At our slowest, it took us about 60 minutes and the quickest was 30 minutes.

In 2010, utilizing Total Production Maintenance (TPM), Casa Sauza identified an opportunity to improve these times.

From the TPM methodology, our teams  learned: 

• What moves us
• What pushes us
• What transforms us

TPM forced us to implement what we learned. This is how one of our managers figured out how to improve efficiency of changing bottle formats.

How do we make format changes on the production line in the shortest possible time?

Step one: Work together, both operators and engineers, to figure out if time could be reduced.

Step two: Watch each operator so everyone could see how the other did it.

After this, we met again and watched how each operator performed a change. The team also watched videos about how car racing teams make their changes so quickly. We brainstormed possible improvements. The first time we did this, we were able to improve our times by 3 to 5 minutes. Once the first improvements were in place, we were challenged with completing a format change in under 10 minutes. This seemed impossible.

The final round of modifications was made and we were ready to test the team with changing a round bottle format to a square bottle. The result was incredible! We did it in 9 minutes and 41 seconds. This was a great achievement in Sauza. 

The TPM methodology has taught us to understand that the main obstacle to improvement is ourselves. We continue to practice these exercises and our record is 6 minutes and 20 seconds.

 What are the benefits? These changes and improvements allow us to provide better and faster customer service. Our fulfillment time has decreased and customer satisfaction has increased.

Today we can do 6 format changes without negatively impacting business.

Come and visit Casa Sauza and meet our experts! They are always happy to tell you more!