Meat + Poultry - October 2009 - 78

LEAN TIPS

food processing enterprise. Shutting
doors, as well as maintaining effective seals on doors, are "little things."
When a food processor deploys Lean,
costs begin to go down. Moreover,
some environmental benefits are often attached to the cost reductions.

Close, inspect
and fix doors
What does one do about open or damaged doors? Close, inspect and fix the
doors is the short answer. Fix dents
and damage so that air transfer is min-

"Taking care of the
little things can
greatly reduce the
cost of running a food
processing enterprise."
imized. Maintaining doors and minimizing drafts also leads to efficiency
with refrigeration, partially because
the defrost cycle can be shorter. To
support this efficiency, maintenance
workers should regularly clean coils
and begin more frequent and shorter
defrost cycles. Remember, however,
one significant cause of energy consumption is warm, humid air moving
unabated into cooler areas. Therefore,
door maintenance is a "little thing"
that needs attention to gain the larger
benefit of reduced energy costs.
One director of quality assurance

in a frozen beef-patty plant says his
number-one environmental challenge
is keeping solids out of the wastewater stream. Drain screens trap oil,
grease and product that lands on the
floor. However, the drains have to be
cleaned and the floor squeegeed just
to minimize the solids in the wastewater stream. Good housekeeping is the
key to manage this particular problem.
From a Lean perspective, using the 5S
tool can further enhance the efficiency
of house cleaning and with continuous
improvement minimize spills.
At one West Coast beef processor,
the supervisor of a patty line said he
was able to reduce the number of frozen patties falling on the floor by setting up webbing that diverts dropped
product into a catch basin. The supervisor had recently learned to run "shop
floor" kaizens. He used the input of his
team to minimize product hitting the
floor and becoming waste. His efforts
raised yield but also reduced solids on
the floors that, to some extent, became
part of the wastewater stream.
In a hog-processing plant, the
main problem is over-production.
They slaughter more hogs and process
more pork products than they can sell.
Over-production in the Lean lexicon
is the worst of all waste. It is the worst
because if you have over-production,
you certainly have the six other wastes.
In this particular plant, the new
QA manager is the leader in recogniz-

78 * Meat&Poultry * October 2009 * www.MeatPoultry.com

ing and addressing over-production.
He has identified the extent of pork
in the freezer as a symptom of many
problems. Not the least of these problems is the direct energy costs associated with freezing product.
Other sustainability issues are part
of this equation. For example, think of
the fuel costs for trucks and forklifts to
transport pork to the off-site freezer.
Establishing baseline standards, improved schedules and creative new
pork sausages are part of the solution to not overly burden the freezer.
Another environmental and costly issue in this pork plant and other
food-processing plants is the use of
chemicals to control bacteria. The QA
manager mentioned in the previous
paragraph has focused attention and
actions on monitoring the effective
use of chemicals. One simple example is ensuring that the Listeria-killing
chemical sprayed as foam on floors is
fi rst foamy and secondly sprayed in a
pattern that maximizes the spread on
the surface before it enters a drain.
During a recent plant walk-through,
I observed many spray patterns went
immediately into a drain. This part
of the problem is easy to fi x and immediately increases the value of the
spray. As a Lean principle, walking the
plant is part of "go see management".

Resolving problems
The problems covered in this Lean
Tip are real, everyday issues. Lean
thinking and Lean tools help provide
a system that continuously identifies
and resolves problems. Often lowering
one's costs includes resolving many
"little problems" that if left unabated
tend to compound. Lean thinking is
uniquely suited to resolving core issues that contribute to energy and
other environmental costs. ■
Dr. Glen Miller is Senior Lean Consultant for Performance Essentials, Inc. More information can
be obtained regarding Lean Manufacturing at
www.performanceessentials.com
We would like to hear from you - to comment
on this story or to request reprints, contact us
by e-mail at meatpoultry@sosland.com.

Meat + Poultry - October 2009

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Meat + Poultry - October 2009