Client Results

Case Study - Global paper manufacturing company


The Company

The company is one of the world's leading makers of tissue, pulp, packaging, building products and related chemicals.

The Challenge

Leadership at one of the company’s mills wanted to reduce the number and cost of unplanned events and increase asset availability. Unplanned events were clearly having an impact on asset availability. There were recurring problems and the mill had high costs from unplanned events relative to facilities of similar size. Mill leadership determined that work teams were not identifying the root cause of problems and were fixing symptoms of the problems.

Solution

ASG recommended a three-pronged approach to developing the critical thinking skills in the mill:

  1. An in-depth program for the management team and other leaders in all the critical thinking skills.
  2. A program to develop Process Coaches who would help in training machine operators and facilitate use of the critical thinking processes on an ongoing basis.
  3. A program for machine operators and mechanics focused on building their awareness of and participation in root cause analysis and problem prevention.

Results

As various groups went through the training, use of the critical thinking skills became part of the culture and operating processes of the mill. They applied the Root Cause Analysis skills to problems, identifying the likely root cause during the program. Since the original sessions, additional machine operators and mechanics have been engaged in the process. The mill saw the cost of unplanned events drop by approximately 75% and are now in line with similar size mills, and the mill achieved an 8,300% ROI on its investment in ASG’s services. Beyond the dollar savings, there is also a greater sense of employee engagement and sharing of information about problems in the mill with open conversations about what went wrong and why.

Based on the success at this mill, ASG was brought into other mills in the company to deliver critical thinking skills training, which helps with mills communicating with each other on common problems.