Plant productivity loss ALSO affects the consumer. (and the consumer is also YOU)
Written By: Claudio Napoleoni – labeling specialist
Companies spend thousands and sometimes millions of dollars on branding certain products and want to make sure that the products on store shelves reflect their plant’s and employee’s quality and overall company reputation.
Shelf appeal sells products, millions of advertising dollars, drive the
demand BUT ultimately, what a product looks like will incite someone to grab it off the shelf regardless of the ads in magazines, TV, internet, blogs, flyers, word of mouth, trade shows or radio. Quite frankly, if you are letting through a lesser quality product by not rejecting it because it is deemed borderline or the best your labeller can do, you are hindering your business’ identity in the market place. If you are concerned about your product and company’s identity, you are rejecting some and so would it not make more sense to do the job right…the first time!
Let’s put in perspective the chain reaction of productivity loss to make it as obvious for the student as it is for the veteran engineer of marketer. In this case, let’s take a primary packaging problem that occurs at the labeling machine.
Let use a product X such as juice, where competition and SKUs are plenty.
A team of analysts will conduct market research for specific product requirement (possibly to alleviate a specific problem or appeal to certain taste that will be attractive to a mass audience.
Research begins to make the proper composition and formulated into a production setting.
The product needs to be temperature controlled, cured, boiled, cooled mixed, diluted etc…
Product is now carried from silos or bulk containers to a dosing or filling line.
The filling line is usually an automated conveyor and an electronically controlled machine with weight ratios, tubes etc that allows the right amount of substance, in this case, it is a viscous juice solution to be deposited into each bottle that has been indexed and stopped for the process.
From the filling line, the bottle is then conveyed to an induction sealer where a protective seal can be places on the mouth opening of each bottle ensuring that no contamination or tampering of the juice is possible from this point.
Of course in this process, the bottle may have gone through a metal detector or impurity detection system ensuring everyone’s consumption safety. Rejected or accepted at this point.
The product is now conveyed to an automatic (pressure sensitive) label applying machine where a label is peeled off its backing liner automatically and applied to the bottle in various forms, front/back labeling, multiple panel applications or wrap around.
Lets just say the labeling machine is not well adjusted and the labels go on the product skewed either top to bottom or back and front, eventually (unless the machine is synchronised) the skew will trigger a double application. Someone will notice this and will stop the system.
When the labeling machine is stopped, the containers are checked and NOW the operator sees that there are many bottles that are rejected. If this happens often throughout a production day…
THAT IS BAD NEWS…
As production errors such as these occur during a given day, week or month, production has to pick up the slack for defective of rejected products. That results in…
Loss of containers,
Loss of labels,
Loss of production time
Possible overtime to catch up
Electricity air, steam and every other process prior to the labeler, needs to be done again to compensate and therefore, natural energy is also lost.
The extra 10 rolls of labels purchased to compensate for the loss (in a given time frame)
The trashing of containers, the trashing of the (juice) hence the fruits used as well…. are all net losses!
Now the shipment of those extra fruits, supplies, bottles etc use up trucks which emit gasses…This is where sustainability is calculated and where so many companies are trying to cut down in order to do their part in reducing the world’s ecological problem.
Fundamentally through, the costs to all this, is absorbed for a while by the manufacturer but ultimately it is transferred to the cost per unit which the consumer pays at retail stores.
Now, if the price gets to high, the demand shortens, and so does the production. Now staff reductions are in effect, pay cuts, less workers who are consumers themselves. Less consumers means less producers and so on!
Where the first consumer of the product sold was not necessarily you, you now have become victim of your own small production problem which seemed to be …perhaps someone else’s problem!?
So, think about it when a new labeler is in the budget for purchase… will you chose the right one? 10 steps to ensure a labeler’s proficiency can help.
Plant productivity loss ALSO affects the consumer… and the consumer is also YOU!
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For more information about this article, call Claudio Napoleoni 450-961-4000 ext 233
