Mars GreenvillePragmatic approach in the Mississippi Delta

The Uncle Ben’s® rice production in North America is concentrated in Greenville (Mississippi, USA) and Bolton (Canada). The Greenville plant was built in 1978. The factory is a distributor of rice to more than 35 countries including ABU SIOUF® to the Middle East.
In 2014 Mars Greenville generated a revenue of more than $ 389 MM and has over 216 full time employees and 90 contract workers.

Assignment:
Mainnovation has been asked to fulfill for a period of 9 months the role of interim reliability manager, manage and improve the daily maintenance processes and increase the maturity level of the maintenance organization.
In addition to provide support to current projects from a maintenance point of view.

Approach:
A current state VDM audit has been executed in order to define a base line for an improvement plan and define the dominant value driver Asset Utilization.
Improvement activities have been focussed upon Reliability Engineering, Planning & Scheduling and Job Execution.
The role of Reliability Engineer has been introduced and together with the HR department fulfilled.
An overall training plan for the department has been defined and subsequently several training courses have been initiated.

Added value Mainnovation:
Transfer of knowledge, both on maintenance processes as on SAP and performance management.
Training and coaching on shop floor level.

Results:

• As starting point for the improvement exercise a current state analysis has been executed and an improvement agenda defined.
• Introduction and implementation of a Reliability Engineer
• Development of a US version of a Reliability Tool including pilot
• Improvement of work management
• Improvement of the SAP system
• An encompassing training plan including implementation

After several years of standstill the Technical Department is making progress again in development.