Portland Pet Food Company

Growth brings challenges. Portland Pet Food Company reached out to OMEP to improve processes to increase efficiency in their manufacturing of biscuit products. Additionally, the PPFC team needed to reduce overall costs in preparation to move to their new facility. They wanted OMEP’s support in facility layout, setup process flow to ensure maximum effectiveness and eliminate waste or bottlenecks. Ultimately, they wished to achieve manufacturing operational excellence. This is defined as, “a sequence of decisions that, over time, enables a business to achieve the desired manufacturing structure, infrastructure, and set of specific capabilities.”

To help PPFC meet their challenges OMEP drew on a Lean Continuous Improvement (CI) transformational philosophy. They began with a current-state Value Stream Mapping (VSM) process. The VSM process is best for dialing in process and data flow to strip out as many non-value-added activities (NVA) as possible. As a result of the VSM, clarity was gained on areas where negative impacts from the eight forms of waste (as defined in lean manufacturing) were occurring.

In Lean manufacturing, wastes are known as Transportation, Inventory, Motion, Waiting, Over-production, Over-processing, Defects, and the Under-utilization of talent. Each of these negatively impacts manufacturing businesses. After identifying areas where waste was present, OMEP utilized the VSM to create an improvement plan with specific strategies and implementation structures necessary to achieve PPFC’s desired future state. The team was trained in lean fundamentals, empowering them to identify wastes in daily activities, problem solve and implement solutions.

One area of focus for improvement was also inventory control in the new space. The team developed standard work for fulfillment and packaging, establishing targets vs actuals, and daily standup meetings.  Visual scheduling helped to improve efficiency.

By improving flow & eliminating waste PPFC experienced significant cost savings due to improved productivity. New capacity has created space that is filling with new sales. The team retained all jobs. Most importantly, Portland Pet Food Company’s long-term manufacturing developments in their new facility are congruent with their overall business strategy and competitive priorities. The team is skilled in lean fundamentals and can put continuous improvement practices into action on a daily basis to make decisions that improve effectiveness, leading to greater capacity and profitability