Bulmers Cider: a case study 1. Introduction Bulmers is the worlds largest producer of cider (an alcoholic beverage made from apple juice), with an output of approximately 350 million litres per year. Its main factory is located at Hereford, near the England/Wales border, where some 85 000 tonnes of apples were processed in the 2001 harvest. A visitors first impression of this site might be that they had entered an enormous speciality chemicals factory, with banks of towering stainless steel silos, kilometres of stainless steel pipe, and a generally very tidy and well laid-out plant. In stark contrast, however, they might notice a procession of farm tractors delivering trailer loads of freshly picked apples to the collection hoppers, or the large numbers of articulated lorries departing with their valuable cargo, their huge curtained sides emblazened with the Strongbow cider logo. The production of cider involves a relatively straightforward set of tasks within a very large and complex macro-operation. Most stages of production are modern and highly automated, not only to reach high levels of productivity, but also to ensure the consistency and quality of the final products. The fresh apples are first washed and cleaned, and are then conveyed to a machine that chops them into smaller pieces. This material is continuously pressed to release the juice, which is then evaporated to form a light syrup which can be stored safely, without fermentation, for future use. At a later stage the concentrated juice is re-diluted and fed into a large fermentation vessel along with a specialist preparation of the appropriate yeasts. After no more than 10 days, the juice will have fully fermented; the majority of the fruit sugars will have been converted into alcohol, at about a 10 per cent strength, which is a much higher level than required for finished cider. After separating the yeasts, the liquid is diluted and blended with other ingredients, ready to be packaged. The majority of the cider that is to be sold in 50 litre stainless steel barrels (kegs) or plastic bottles is first pasteurised. There is a large automated pro- duction line for filling kegs, and another line which blows (prepares) plastic bottles, fills and labels them. The remaining cider is automatically filled into glass bottles and cans, which are then pasteurised. These products are outer-wrapped in point-of- sale packaging such as cardboard multipacks. Finally, the packed materials are palletised and warehoused, ready for despatch. 2. Evolution of manufacturing in the 1990s Each stage of this operation presents its own set of technical difficulties, complexities, and quality challenges. There are several reasons for this. One is that the natural raw materials (apples and yeasts) have a high level of variability. This results in the need constantly to monitor and adjust the downstream production processes. A bigger impact on the operation comes from the market. Consumers and retailers require ongoing innovation in both product and packaging, which has to be accommodated within each stage of production. Demand varies seasonally, cyclically and randomly and the operation needs to respond to this to avoid storing large quantities of inventory. Additionally, there are numerous human resource issues that add to the complexities faced by the operations managers. The past decade has been a period of intense change since almost every technology has been replaced, with higher levels of automation displacing much of the manual labour tasks. In consequence, skills and working practices have had to change, while at the same time the companys volume growth has required new shift patterns. Reorganisation and retraining have been undertaken at an unprecedented scale. Chris Jones, the Training Manager, described some of the achievements and problems of the last few years: Increasingly, during the first half of the 1990s, the management team became aware that the levels of productivity and quality achieved in operations were not matching the pace of investment in new technology. For example, downtime was increasing as a result of inadequate maintenance and long changeover times. We knew that some fairly radical change would be required, but we were also aware that help would be needed because of the scale and scope of the tasks ahead. We investigated several change consultancy companies that specialised in manufacturing operations, and eventually chose a local company, MPI, to help us. They were particularly attractive to us in that they had the skills and personalities to work well with shop floor personnel. They introduced us to what they called total productive manufacturing or TPM. This has many of the elements of total productive maintenance, but really goes much further. Let me explain... The main thrust of the consultants early work involved improvements to routine maintenance and working practices. They worked with selected individual production teams, identifying all the areas of machines that had to be lubricated, cleaned, adjusted, or otherwise regularly maintained. These areas were all labelled so that they could be clearly identified by everyone. Then each team prepared comprehensive work instructions that clearly set out the responsibilities, routines and procedures required to maximise the overall productivity of the processes, using the previously referenced areas of the machines. Not only did this release the plant technicians to undertake other more complex work, but it also ensured that the day-today condition of the plant was greatly improved. With hindsight, we now realise that the technicians had never had sufficient capacity (or time) to complete all the routine maintenance required in the increasingly large, complex and automated plant. Ownership by the operations team of these routine tasks increased their own interest and commitment, and several of the teams have achieved dramatic improvements in productivity and quality. Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) was measured and generally improved as a result of the TPM activities. In addition to this work, the consultants began training each team in problem solving and resolution techniques. Whilst these were often not immediately applied, most teams did at least manage to maintain the improvements they had achieved. But the consultants knew this was only the first step in TPM, and that the real gains would only come from subsequent steps in the TPM methodology. These activities take time, and this was recognised from the outset. Hours were set aside for TPM work, and no production was scheduled for these periods of up to four hours per week. Some team leaders, supervisors and managers were unhappy with this because they were simultaneously under pressure for output. In some ways, I think this limited our progress to the later steps of TPM. It was never intended that the team activities should be confined to routine maintenance and cleanliness. What we really wanted was ongoing continuous improvement, for example process improvements and changeover time reduction. But there was often little support from the supervisors and team leaders for continuing along this route, so only a few teams have really gone on to this type of activity. One of the few examples of ongoing success is the Keg Team, which has dramatically improved performance in its area. In my view, the problem lay both with our existing organisation structure and with the capabilities, personalities and motivation of some of the supervisory and management staff. We had a complex organisation structure in manufacturing, with six levels between the Operations Director and the shop floor. For a company with less than 500 employees in manufacturing, this was clearly excessive! We had large numbers of shift- based supervisors, some of whom also had relief supervisors, or assistants, and many of these had only been given supervisory responsibility as a consequence of experience and long service in their area. Many were of the old school of manufacturing supervision ... good at following routines such as record keeping, and focused on the immediate output of their shift, which is often referred to as getting pallets out of the door. Indeed, our performance measurement system encouraged this culture, and this was recognised at an early stage by the consultants. They even recommended that the supervisors should be excluded from involvement with the TPM teams so that the teams could concentrate on improvement, isolated from the immediate pressure for output. Earlier, in a few areas of the factory, supervisors had been superseded by team leaders (who were from an engineering or technical background). These proved to be more amenable to the TPM processes, but even then, progress towards the improvement stages of TPM was often slow. More significantly, I believe that the potential benefits of employing these more capable team leaders were not always fully appreciated by our manufacturing managers, so the role was underdeveloped for a while. With the benefit of hindsight, the exclusion of supervisors from the teams was a mis- take because we never achieved buy-in from them. During TPM activities, they often went to their offices to catch up with paperwork or other tasks, and were not seen to support their teams at all. Their involvement, if any, was clearly reluctant, and this did little to motivate their teams to migrate to further steps in the TPM process. The practical consequence of this was that when the pressure for output increased, the time for TPM meetings was locally withdrawn on an adhoc basis, sending strong messages to the workers that improvement activities were no longer important. The enthusiasm of the teams was undermined, and this was a management problem it was our fault! We were sending out mixed messages. 3. A manufacturing reorganisation At the beginning of January 1999, a significant reorganisation of manufacturing was implemented. The supervisor roles were removed and replaced by 22 team leaders, all now qualified at NVQ (National Vocational Qualification) Level Four, which is a respected management qualification. These team leaders were to be front-line managers in every area and on every shift. Existing supervisors, shift managers and team leaders were invited to re apply for these new jobs, but during the rigorous assessment process, few met the capability requirements of the new role. Several accepted redundancy, and one shift manager returned to a shop floor role. The team leaders role now unambiguously encompasses many aspects of human resource management, including training, motivation, facilitation, employee development, team support, and obtaining the necessary resources to support improvement activities. In addition, of course, they continue to be responsible for planning capacity, achieving output targets and maintaining quality in their areas of responsibility. Chris Jones observed: Despite these radical changes, the TPM programme did not progress as much as we expected under this new arrangement. In some areas, significant improvements were made by TPM teams, but this was not widespread and universal. In mid-1999, attempts were made to relaunch and revitalise TPM, highlighting set-up reduction and eliminating bottlenecks as important target areas for team activities. Further training (in problem finding and solving, and in the use of simple tools and techniques of analysis) was made available to the teams. I think that we failed to encourage team leaders and engineers to get involved, and without their support little new would happen. Some or all of the time allocated to TPM meetings continued to be taken for production as the whole system was under intense pressure of growth. Team leaders often felt that TPM was the domain of teams and not of themselves! TPM was never included as a core objective of their role, and some would not even be able to explain clearly what TPM was all about. Despite this, some teams did very well, but others made little progress in the move towards continuous improvement. As far as the shop floor was concerned, people got involved to a very varied extent. Within a team, some didnt want to be included in improvement activities at all; others enjoyed being involved with TPM meetings, but maybe in order to avoid the intensive cleaning activities that took place concurrently! Some actually valued the training, as well as the thinking activities and discussions that took place in special meeting rooms. Critical mass is an issue. One forceful character in a team can exert a big influence on it, either positive or negative. Some teams have worked extremely well because they passed the critical mass and gained support from the influencers; others have achieved much less because they have insufficient enthusiasts and; too many obstructive influencers. Questions 1. What were the advantages of the early focus on basics, such as cleanliness, maintenance and working procedures, in advance of the wider scope offered by continuous (process) improvement activities? [10] 2. In what ways did the organisation change in 1999 influence successful TPM implementation? [10] 3. How has the role of team leader developed to support the improvement activities?[5]