The global pandemic hit many businesses hard, including those in the ever-competitive beverage industry. But it also provided an opportunity for companies to examine current processes and find ways to make positive changes.
An example of commitment to continuous process improvement comes from Pepsi Co. The company is known as a proponent of Lean Six Sigma. As recently as 2021, Pepsi officials talked about using Minecraft in Lean Six Sigma training. The company used the game to replace face-to-face training made impossible during the height of the global pandemic.
In a recent interview with MRO in Canada, Les Cyfko, Director M&W, Operations, Engineering and Continuous Improvement at PepsiCo, said the pandemic also revealed the correlation between continuous improvement and company results.
“Lean Six Sigma, by virtue of simple tools like process mapping, identifying pain points and non-value added activities can help you discover potential solutions,” he said. He added that the ability to do that “is of paramount importance” in today’s macroeconomic climate.
Reducing the Seven Forms of Waste
Cyfko offered insight into how Pepsi uses Lean Six Sigma to drive its continuous improvement program. It’s a rare look into the details of how a large corporation employs the methodologies.
One of the main areas is the use of Lean Six Sigma “end-to-end across the business” to address waste in operational processes, he said. Pepsi refers to seven forms of wastes that the company calls TIMWOOD, an acronym for Transportation, Inventory, Motion, Waiting, Overproduction, Overprocessing and Defects. It’s a version of the Eight Wastes of Lean that has provided a standard for decades.
Pepsi primarily applies Six Sigma to its Design of Experiments. As examples, Cyfko mentioned “finding the right center lining” and more complicated issues related to the company’s global supply chain.
Total Productive Maintenance
The second “plank” in the Pepsi continuous improvement plan involves Total Productive Maintenance (TPM). In this area, Pepsi focuses on reducing downtime, increasing uptime and ensuring long-term equipment viability in the company’s plants and manufacturing facilities.
TPM is of great importance to Pepsi because the company’s equipment costs millions to replace. As with most manufacturing processes, taking a machine offline also is very disruptive to operational efficiency. “If we can extend the lifetime of our machines and assets, that helps ensure an uninterrupted supply chain,” Cyfko said.
While a sector team out of New York oversees the operation, Pepsi runs by a slogan of :”nationally great, locally even better.” Local operations are given leeway in determining the best use of Lean Six Sigma in their operations.
An Important Role in Challenging Times
Cyfko said that continuous process improvement is key to success in the post-pandemic climate that is still beset by inflationary concerns and global tensions, including the war in Ukraine. These events can especially impact a global company such as Pepsi.
Inflation especially has had an impact. Large leaps in costs of supplies and materials have come with a need to trim costs and make operations more efficient to offset inflationary pressure. Adopting a strong process improvement program can help companies achieve that goal.
Cyfko said the company also sticks to the traditional models from Lean and Six Sigma, rather than trying to recreate them. “At the end of the day, these methodologies are tried and true. I think we should spend less time trying to invent new names for these processes and stick to the tools that work and have been tested over time,” he said.
