A Process Improvement Analysis ofthe Coleslaw Production Lines atNatures Way Foods

This management project was tasked with analysing and improving the coleslaw production lines at Natures Way Foods. The coleslaw lines had recently implemented new machinery to the process and performance was below expectation. Analysis of the production lines was completed so that problems could be diagnosed. A number of academic models were evaluated and considered before deciding on a hybrid of incremental process improvement models. The research had a limited timeframe for completion and only had 10 weeks of data collection. Observations and meetings were used as the primary source of data collection. The data was analysed using the 7 tools of quality and a ‘drilling down’ approach. The results showed that the main cause for reduced throughput was downtime. By drilling down into the causes behind the downtime, a minority of causes were responsible for the majority of the downtime. The focus was then placed onto this minority of causes to find the root causes behind their downtime. By finding the root causes, a discussion of potential solutions was held before placing the solutions into an implementation plan.