Lantmännen Unibake MouscronVDM^XL Audit and support implementation improvement plan at Lantmännen Unibake Mouscron

Mission

The Mouscon site is the group’s largest “French pastry” site (croissants, chocolate rolls, sausage rolls, apple turnovers, etc.). The plant was built in 1988 and has today several modern production lines. In this highly competitive competitive world with high demands in terms of food quality and safety, there are raised expectations for technical installations. The technical service is challenged to guarantee high technical reliability at an acceptable cost. In this framework, the maintenance manager wished to have his department examined to see where to implement de following improvements.

Approach

Mainnovation has conducted a VDM^XL audit at Lantmännen Unibake Mouscron. We have carried out various activities in order to get a good overview of the current situation. We have thus:

• Collected a certain amount of maintenance indicators
• Led discussions with the people from the maintenance service, as well as with their internal clients and partners
• Analysed the daily running of activities by means of observation sessions

On top of that, we paid extra attention to the design and the use of the Rimses as an IT support tool in the maintenance process.

Thanks to this input, we organised a workshop to discuss our analysis of the current state. During this interactive workshop, we benchmarked the maintenance indicators with similar companies in the sector. The 12 indicators representative of each process in particular were thus compared with one another. Besides the quantitative comparison, we also discuss the maturity of the processes. This qualitative analysis is based on the interviews and observations.

After the workshop on the current state, we also organised a future state workshop. At Lantmännen Unibake Mouscron, the increase in technical availability (combined with a decrease in dough losses due to technical shutdowns) constitutes the dominant value driver. Based on this, we have investigated which “best practices” could be implemented in order to have a direct positive impact on this theme. The question here is to strengthen the “aorta” of the maintenance organisation: Reliability Engineering – Work Preparation & Planning – Job Execution and the Plan – Do – Act – Check loop applied to technical losses.

The conclusions of the future state workshop were then translated into an action plan. This plan “Step-to-Milestone” is a step-by-step plan for the next 18 months. It contains all the activities per month and per theme that are needed to achieve the set targets.

A maintenance service works on short- and long-term actions. It is therefore important that everyone has the time and skills that are necessary to fulfil their role. A clear division of the roles is really important. We have thus developed a series of proposals at Lantmännen Unibake Mouscron to set up the organisation structure in such a way to provide maximum support for the processes. This new organisation is built with the people of the existing team. In order to define clearly the roles and responsibilities, Lantmännen Unibake based itself on the standard Process Map of Mainnovation.

In addition, we coached the people in their new role. That way, we apply the new work methodology directly in practice and we embed it in new routines.

Added value Mainnovation

With the standardized approach of the VDM^XL audit, Mainnovation was able to carry out an analysis of the current situation on short- and long-term. Based on the benchmark database with relevant references within the industry, we compared and tested the results.

In addition, a VDM^XL audit is always dominated by the concept of “Focus + Change”. The “Focus” has to do with the right analysis, benchmarking, determining priorities and developing a step-by-step plan. All these topics cannot be considered separately from the “Change” aspect. We have to also take into account the acceptance for every aspect. We work on this by means of a change readiness analysis, the workshops with active contribution from the participants, a communication plan, one-on-one conversations with several key figures, etc. Thanks to this approach, the focus is on realising in the field and created added value. This is crucial to promote acceptance and the entire “change process”.