about this project

The client is a major Scottish food manufacturer, supplying goods globally. PBI were employed to provide proven Lean project delivery expertise and work as an integrated partner with the Leadership and site teams, with a focus on the Production side of the business.

There was a general consensus that factory giveaway was too high across the business - in 2023, giveaway was in excess of £5.74M. Giveaway can be defined as overfilling a bagged product above its declared net weight.



The client recognised the benefits of using a Lean and Agile approach to baseline the problem, evaluate the extent of the issue and devise a structured process to improve Giveaway on all products across two sites, collaborating with each of the six factories. The requirement to develop a standardised process for future activity and a monitoring process for sustainment was also identified. 

The implementation of Visual Management and data-driven insights was pivotal to the success of the project.

Effective sponsorship was critical in supporting the project team, consisting of; Factory Managers, Charge Hands, QA, Commercial, Technical and Engineering. Communicating the impact that Giveaway can have on the business was an essential part of the initial phase of the event.

The key objectives of the engagement:

• Reduce Giveaway across the business
• Improve Giveaway data reliability through increase in data collection
  

Project Scope

• Aim of project was to reduce product Giveaway across the business
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• Improve data collection, visibility, reliability and drive decision-making from data-backed insights
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• Implement real-time process improvements
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• Create Giveaway Trackers that are automated, trusted, visual and accessible
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• Effective Teamwork & Engagement
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• Internal Capability Build
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Improvement Strategy

• New, challenging but achievable Factory targets set by Head of Production (no targets ever set for biscuit categories before)

• Weekly Production Meetings at both sites with Head of Production, Factory Managers, Engineering and QA

• Top £10k+ 2024 giveaway product codes highlighted and reviewed with Factory Managers. Codes assigned to responsible department

• Giveaway Tracker developed for both sites, monitoring ‘real-time’ data across 6 factories for Factory Managers and Head of Production to review and action

Benefits Delivered

• Across 579 product codes, yield is expected to improve in 2024 by £876,000+ in case price, versus 2023

• 0.83% drop in giveaway (as % of total annual volume produced) vs 2023



• Giveaway reduction (£) in case price from £5.74M in 2023 to £4.78M in 2024