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industrial engineering solutions

Problem solving, performance improvement and process optimisation. Industrial Engineering and Management Consulting 

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Not getting the results that you want from your enterprise? Costs too high, output too low, wasting materials, time or resources and want to improve. If you want to make your enterprise more efficient and productive but don’t have the time or specialist knowledge in-house to do it effectively then Industrial Engineering Solutions can assist.

Our focus is improving and optimising processes and systems, re-engineering them to be more efficient and waste less time, money, resources, manpower and energy. We use specialist knowledge and expertise to analyse and evaluate, develop and design, predict and implement solutions to overcome your problems.

Working mostly in the manufacturing, distribution, transportation, primary, energy, retail and service industries our expertise can assist you improve your enterprise.

introduction

Hi I’m Andrew Messem, BSc (Hons), an experienced Industrial Engineering Consultant, Management Consultant  and problem solver based in Johannesburg. I assist companies, large and small, to save time and money in doing what they do best.

With more than 3 decades of experience I tackle a wide range of projects in any industry. After initial discussion an  on-site inspection is conducted to gain background and context as well as introduction to the main players. A proposal detailing the project costs, timescale and benefits i.e. the deliverables is presented. to the client

On proposal acceptance working with the client’s project teams, management and staff, aided by my knowledge and passion, practical, cost effective solutions are created and a plan of action agreed.

Implementation can take several forms. In-house managed or with my assistance. I can also assist staff in implementing the solutions proposed in, for example, training, procurement, change management, mentoring, whatever is required.

In the continuous improvement phase KPI’s are tracked, ensuring continuing achievement  of project results. With the better knowledge of the system gained by all personnel further suggestions are often made, which, if managed properly,  result in further significant improvements.

Skills and knowledge

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Industrial Engineering

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Lean Manufacture

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Six
Sigma

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Lean Six Sigma

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Theory of Constraints

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Problem Solving

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Supply Chain

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Statistical Analysis

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Critical Analysis

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CAD

Process flow

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Industries worked in

Aerospace

Agriculture

Apparel

Automotive

Catering

Construction

Cosmetics and Toiletries

Dairy 

Energy

Distribution

FMCG

Food

Health

Manufacture

Mining

Maintenance

Pharmaceutical

Retail

Recycling

Refinery

SMME

State Owned Enterprises

Textiles

Warehousing

case studies

INCREASING THROUGHPUT AND REVENUE

CASE STUDY 1

increasing throughput and revenue

A project in the Metals  Reclamation and Refining Industry was undertaken to identify the root cause of the reclamation constraint and increase the output. The present process was studied in detail, the constraints identified and evaluated. Solutions to the constraints required re-design of the process flow and the design of specialised equipment to be purpose built.  The designed equipment was built and installed in the new layout. Staff were introduced to the new process, trained and change-managed through the start-up of the new processes required. After the initial learning curve the throughput was increased to 350% of the previous level contributing significantly to the company’s bottom line.

MANPOWER REQUIREMENTS (RETAIL)

CASE STUDY 4

MANPOWER REQUIREMENT ESTABLISHMENT - RETAIL

A major South African Retail chain was concerned that its manning levels and costs were increasing relative to sales. A project was undertaken to establish the activities of the staff and the interaction with customers per department. From the results obtained the activities actually required could be established and training  implemented to improve staff productivity and customer service and interaction levels where necessary. 

Sophisticated records of sales volumes per SKU per hour per day throughout the year were available to management allowing the determination of staff requirement in each department. With the data on record the peaks in workload for each department could be taken into account when determining staff required e.g. Point of Sale (POS) peaks occurred twice a day at different levels depending on the day of the week, the week of the month and the month the year. 

The standards obtained in units per man-hour for each department allowed management to determine the number of full-time staff required as well as the number of part-time staff required to cover the varying workloads over time in each department reducing the overall cost of staff whilst improving customer service and interaction where necessary. 

MAINTENANCE IMPROVEMENTS AND MANNING

CASE STUDY 7

MAINTENANCE IMPROVEMENTs and MANNING

Maintenance projects have been undertaken in companies in industries such as Energy, Manufacturing, Vehicle Maintenance including road, off-road and rail, Textile and Medical. In almost all of these the aim has been to reduce the cost whilst increasing the effectiveness of maintenance. This has been achieved in different ways in different projects depending on the environment and problems encountered.

Common problems areas identified in most of the projects include manning levels, training and the effectiveness of maintenance. On the manning level question direct observations,  time studies and activity sampling have been used to determine the relevant work activities of the  staff. Breakdown and job-card analysis of the historical workload together with preventative maintenance (PM) records has given indications of the effectiveness of Maintenance. During these observations and analyses the actual practices of the maintenance department and staff observed is compared to accepted “Best Practices” and recommendations made to improve both manpower productivity whilst increasing effectiveness and reducing costs.   

A further necessary area of study has been establishing the criticality of equipment and measuring the occurrence and frequency of unplanned breakdowns compared to preventative maintenance(PM). Achieving the correct balance between PM and breakdown maintenance bearing in mind the reliability of the equipment will increase availability and reduce costs. Condition monitoring can also be utilised. In cases of high impact of equipment unavailability on the throughput and profitability of a company specific risk analysis can be conducted and solutions determined. Spares availability also needs analysing and evaluating to ensure critical spares are available to reduce the impact or risk of breakdowns whilst ensuring that unnecessary expenditure is minimised. Case Study 3 details one such project in the mining industry. 

INCREASING WAREHOUSE CAPACITY

CASE STUDY 2

INCREASING WAREHOUSE CAPACITY

A FMCG company in a neighbouring country identified several warehousing problems. Christmas Peak demand  necessitated more pallets of goods than could be accommodated by the warehouses. Vehicle congestion on-site was also a problem with interlinks needing to reverse resulting in truck turnaround time (TTR) increasing as waiting time increased. On-site inspection showed that the site was extremely congested.

Close study of the vehicles utilised for incoming RM deliveries together with the delivery fleet unloading crates and loading new deliveries allowed a logical flow of vehicles to be designed in a natural flow obviating reversing of inter-links.

Detailed study of SKU sales allowed high and low volume SKU’s to be determined by season. By splitting the areas holding high and low volume SKU’s better overall space utilisation could be achieved by redesigning warehouse layouts. For the low volume SKU’s specialised picking areas were designed and implemented. by separating the lowvolume SKU’s into their own area the floor space for the high volume SKU’s was increased by over 27%. A new layout was designed further increasing the stock holding to 146% of previous levels. By careful planning and utilising the increased space for the correct stock mix for peak Demand  the loss of sales due to  stock-outs would  be obviated increasing turnover and bottom line. In addition a Masterplan detailing space requirements in the future was established and the site expansions necessary together with budget costs determined.

MANPOWER MODELING (PARCEL DELIVERY)

CASE STUDY 5

MANPOWER MODELLING PARCEL DELIVERY

A department of a State Owned Entity wished to establish the staff required for each its numerous depots involved in Parcel pick-up and delivery throughout South Africa. Covering the entire country the depots were all sizes from small serving rural ares to medium serving towns and cities to large serving metropolitan areas. The information to be obtained from the study was required as decision support for the department’s long term strategic planning.

Representative depots were selected for study and the process value streams mapped, evaluated and optimised.  Applicable units of measure for each depot department were established. Detailed studies were conducted to determine standard units per hour for each operation throughout the pick-up, cross-docking and delivery process. A model was constructed to determine the manpower required, from sweeper to depot head for each depot, country-wide based on each of the operations necessary. The manning derived was based on the parcels picked up, received, cross-docked and delivered per depot together with the km’s traveled on pick-ups and deliveries. Cognisance was taken of the variation of throughput for each depot to establish the optimal manning level.

CONSTRAINT REDUCTIONS, THROUGHPUT INCREASES

CASE STUDY 8

CONSTRAINT REDUCTIONS, THROUGHPUT INCREASES

A common problem area in many manufacturing companies this problem also applies to the mining industry. The methodology of identifying the constraints, establishing the root causes and developing cost effective solutions is similar in all industries. Projects at two mines are shown as examples although the methodology applies equally to other industries. 

At the mechanised inclined platinum mine management concerns were raised on the utilisation and availability of LHD (Lift-Haul-Dump) Trucks and DTs (Dump Trucks) which were impacting the ore removal rates and mine bottom line. Stoping blamed tramming for not clearing muck bays whilst tramming blamed stoping for muck bays being empty. Studies were made both above and below ground and the reasons for the low utilisation and availability of the vehicles established. Besides the normal problems of late starts, early finishes slow servicing and breakdowns the underground roadway surfaces were found to be extremely poor. This resulted in the loaded DT kmph being higher than the unloaded travel kmph due to the driver being bounced around more when the truck was unloaded and sitting at the top of its suspension. Recommendations were made to rectify the problems observed including management organisation and improving shift discipline. Part of the time lost at start-up was due to both shafts start-up times being similar causing a bussing constraint, Bus routes were studied, evaluated and re-organised with new pick-ups points identified to reduce the total transport time. This together with staggering the shift start times obviated the cause of the bussing constraint.

At an open pit diamond mine the constraint identified was the haulage of ore to the crushers. One of the areas of concern was the impact of the time spent on routine maintenance on haul truck availability . The servicing of haulage trucks in the Service Bays was studied in detail and the unnecessary and ineffective time losses identified. Recommendations were made to improve the maintenance process which significantly reduced the time lost in servicing the trucks. 

IMPROVING EQUIPMENT AVAILABILITY

CASE STUDY 3

Improving equipment availability

The Rock-drill Maintenance workshop of a major mining group was performing sub-optimally  resulting in a low availability of rock-drills. This in turn  impacted on ore recovery, mine output and increased mining costs.

The full life-cycle of the rock-drill equipment was established and a detailed value stream mapped and analysed identifying the poor performance areas.

The major problem areas were identified as high spares costs, poor control of equipment both above and below surface together with low labour utilisation, poor methods and quality control in the maintenance workshop. Detailed study of the parts usage combined with mean time between failure (MTBF) analysis highlighted the poor and wrong usage of spares exacerbating the high costs. The lack of standard operating procedures (SOPs) necessitated detailed time study of the work methods. Detailed analysis of the control systems, both above and below ground were undertaken and evaluated.  

New work methods were designed and incorporated in new SOP’s in the workshop. Necessary changes were established throughout the Rock Drill value chain including Quality Inspection and Control. Supervision and Junior management were trained in the appropriate tools and systems of effective production management. Performance metrics (KPI’s) were defined and short interval controls implemented. IT systems data was updated. Purchase justification and inventory control systems  together with cost-centre allocation of Rock-Drills were implemented. Communication requirements were established and Risk Analysis  undertaken. Change management plans were drawn up and implemented.

Productivity was increased substantially allowing weekend overtime to be eliminated. Major financial savings were achieved on spares whilst MTBF of Rock-Drills was increased resulting in increased equipment availability at reduced cost.

STOCK LEVEL REDUCTION SERVICE LEVEL IMPROVEMENT

CASE STUDY 6

STOCK LEVEL REDUCTION - service level improvement

A major local pharmaceutical company commissioned a project to reduce finished goods stock levels whilst increasing customer service levels.

The initial stage of the project was to establish and evaluate the current processes in place and the stock levels held per Stock Keeping Unit (SKU). SKU’s were produced in-house and supplied by local and overseas third party producers. Lead times and supplier reliability were determined together with batch sizes and shelf life. ABC analysis of the SKU’s was done. A complication was that SKU’s were split between OTC, Rx and  life critical Rx requiring further SKU categorisation as safety levels needed to be higher for Rx and especially for life critical Rx SKUs. Categories were revised ensuring lower overall total stock cover whilst provider higher stock cover for the more critical SKUs.

The required levels of stock to achieve the project objectives were calculated and three scenarios proposed based on varying levels of safety stock and service levels. An action plan was drawn up for the agreed scenario and implemented with weekly feedback meetings.

SUPPLY CHAIN IMPROVEMENTS

CASE STUDY 9

SUPPLY CHAIN IMPROVEMENTS

Many projects have been undertaken in the supply chain field from material receipt and storage through conversion to the final delivery of goods to the client.

On warehousing many projects have dealt with  effective management and efficient utilisation of space, equipment and manning within the warehouse. Warehouse and factory layouts have been designed to reduce both stock holdings and unnecessary movement and handling of stock for palletised, case and individual SKUs. Picking areas. both hand and mechanical, have been designed and implemented for ease of use, accuracy(OTIF) and load stability. Picking algorithms have been tested and improved to increase load stability and vehicle loading increasing transport efficiency (FTE) and reducing transport costs (FTC). Loading of vehicles has also been studied and recommendations on improving turnaround time (TAT) implemented. Vehicle flows, unloading, parking, loading and exit have all been studied, analysed, re-engineered and implemented to reduce congestion and achieve faster, more accurate deliveries.     

Deliveries to clients has also been studied in detail to reduce FTC and increase FTE. Studies have been done to determine the crewing necessary, the travel speeds on various roads and the time taken for delivery to the various categories of customers in order to improve the service levels and reduce costs. 

A further area of project work required by the more strategic, forward looking clients has been the developing of masterplans to determine the facilities required over the next 5, 10 and 20 years based on differing rates of company growth.

clients

ABB Powertech

Adcock Ingram

Anchor Yeast

Barrick Platinum

Ferro SA

Fry’s Metals

Martin Jonker Motors

Pick ‘n Pay

PX Parcel Services

Sandvik

Tusk Music

ABI

Anglo Platinum

Coca Cola Beverages South Africa

Elmac

Firestone

Industrial Mouldings

Medunsa

Pond’s

Rhone Paulenc Rohrer

Score Supermarkets

Venetia Diamond Mine

AE Pistons

African Rainbow Minerals

Arwa

David Whiteheads

Escom

Frame Group

Jet Stores

Nissan Parts and accessories

SA Post Office

SAB

Waverley Textiles

contact

info@industrialengineeringsolutions.co.za

+27 (0)82 448 6648 

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