Kung Fu Pandas use their loaf to fight rising costs

One of the many highlights from last year’s Lean & TPM Forum held in Sydney was Simplot Australia-Ulverstone‘s Kung Fu Panda team’s presentation on how they saved their site over $700,000 a year in crumb waste management costs.

The Simplot Australia-Ulverstone site processes some 240,000 tonnes of potatoes a year to produce a range of frozen chips and potato battered products, which generate the bi-product of batter crumb at the fryer operation.

The team met for 1.5hrs a week over 12 weeks using CTPM’s Micro New Equipment Management (NEM) methodology which involved analysing the current situation, developing a vision of improved performance and then identifying and verifying possible solutions.

The team decided to conduct trials on two different types of systems to improve crumb waste management to:

  • Improve oil recovery from crumb
  • Reduce paper filter usage
  • Reduce the casual labour and manual handling required to dispose of the waste and
  • Become more environmentally friendly.

The existing Paper Filter system in use cost an estimated $500,000 a year in oil and associated costs. After the trials the team recommended the purchase of a new type of machine, which once installed generated the projected $700,000 savings.

During the presentation the team shared the knowledge that helped them achieve the great outcome.

The top two Cross-functional and Area Based improvement teams within Australasia will go head to head in the CTPM annual team competition finals during Day One of the Lean & TPM Forum 2010 on July 26 at the Citigate Central Hotel, Sydney.

CTPM
Ph: 02 4226 6184
www.ctpm.org.au