Frontline Fixes Lift OEE 20 Points at Employee-Owned Chemical Plant

Haviland Enterprises, an employee-owned chemical manufacturer, deployed Redzone's Productivity module in Q1 2023, achieving a 20-point OEE uplift and freeing 10%-15% of its capacity. Its frontline teams went on to lift OEE 20 points across two business groups and free 10% to 15% of capacity.

Founded in 1934, Haviland runs two businesses. Haviland Products Company is a contract manufacturer and packager of liquid and dry chemical products for the retail, medical, agriculture, and marine industries. Haviland Pool & Spa sells pool and spa chemicals to consumers and businesses nationwide. Together they run 10 packaging lines across facilities in Michigan, Ohio, and Arizona

The Challenge

Haviland wanted to move faster than its competitors, and that meant putting real production data in front of the people running the lines. "We want to be able to track more data in real time so that our teams can react faster and continuously improve our operations," says Matt Osterhaven, Vice President of Finance. "So, as our competitors evolve, we will as well."

Why Haviland Chose Redzone

Meg Post, Haviland's President and CEO, learned about Redzone from AquaCal, a manufacturer running the Connected Workforce Solution. AquaCal "showed us how employees engaged with Redzone on the floor, using visual boards by equipment and TVs overhead," she says. "The insights and reporting they were getting from the software were very interesting to us."

Post also saw how Redzone sparked friendly competition between workers on different production lines. She believed it would do the same at Haviland, giving managers and frontline workers a way to win the day by solving problems themselves.

"We saw an opportunity there," says Kyle Dutcher, Haviland Quality Manager, who led the implementation. "We saw how Redzone could take us to the next level by providing us with real-time tracking on how we're performing day-to-day in terms of our OEE, availability, and quality. We also knew that Redzone would provide more structure to our huddles and daily vital sign meetings and involve our workers in solving production issues."

Haviland's leadership team looked at other solutions and visited various Redzone customers before deciding to move forward with the Redzone Connected Workforce Solution.

"The major reason we went with Redzone was that it had so many rich features built in, such as communication, action tracking, forums, and [it] leveraged Lean management principles across workflows," says Vonn Schopp, Director of Manufacturing.

The Rollout

Because Haviland is 100% employee owned, its staff has a direct stake in the company's future, Post explains.

The leadership team "knew that Redzone would enable our team to take ownership of their work, escalate issues, and become engaged in their success and the success of their production line every day," she continues. That ownership made the rollout something people wanted rather than something handed to them. 

Starting With a 90-Day Sprint

Haviland piloted the Productivity module on a key packaging line using Redzone's coached 90-day sprint. The sprint sets five measurable goals:

• Create a visual factory, which includes production efficiency measurements visible to all workers, factory-wide and in real time.
• Coach operators and supervisors in basic CI tools, effective short-interval-control, and collaborative problem-solving skills.
• Improve OEE by at least eight points by the end of day 90.
• Establish baseline OEE, track gains, and document cost savings as verified by factory finance teams.
• Sustain on gains made in the first 90 days and improve on them in the months and years to come.

Working With a Redzone Coach

Coaching is central to every Redzone deployment. Redzone coaches come out of manufacturing, and they work on-site with operators and supervisors to build Lean habits and teach them how to get full use out of the tools.

"I was the lead on the implementation, so I was very nervous going into it because it seemed like a huge task to overcome, but the Redzone team walked us through it step by step," says Dutcher. "They offered us a ton of support."

Scaling Across Two Business Groups

"We were fortunate that we had a two-tier implementation. We had normal implementation challenges with our first business group because we were adopting new processes requiring behavioral changes," says Schopp. "However, by the time we onboarded the second business group, we had better data integrity and defined processes."

Working alongside their coach, the teams loaded 1,500 SKUs into Redzone, including rates, TMax rates, targets, and problem codes. Plant Manager Mark Albing says it took some work to settle on which sensors, inputs, and outputs to use.

The Results

A 20-Point OEE Uplift

Across the two business groups, Haviland averaged a 20-point OEE uplift. "Within the first three weeks, we began to achieve some traction," says Schopp. "Within four months, our industrial repack group had improved OEE by 100%." 

Faster Changeovers Through Frontline Problem Solving

"When we first implemented Redzone, we experienced a lot of unplanned downtime," says Chandra DeGood, West Packaging Facility Supervisor. "So, we held a Kaizen event, which identified many small issues our operators could address. Redzone provided the data to back up our teams' observations and theories about different production issues."

Tyler DeGood, a packager on the North Liquids Line, has used Redzone and Kaizen events to work with managers on process improvements, such as separating 36 types of fill heads into multiple buckets. "Little things like that have already shown how we can speed up our changeover process," Tyler DeGood says.

Process improvements cut changeover times from as long as 90 minutes down to 45, and raised bottle output from 45 to 50 per minute.

"The Kaizen event was a huge turning point for improving the morale of our team because they saw exactly what good standards work can accomplish. They also saw the importance of teamwork and how their ideas were heard and used to drive process improvements." – Chandra DeGood | West Packaging Facility Supervisor, Haviland

Capacity and ROI Results

The gains freed 10% to 15% of capacity for more production."We're doing the same work with less hours needed," explains Schopp.

As a result, Dutcher says, "we've already communicated our availability to the salesforce and know that we have opportunities to target on several different production lines." 

Osterhaven says Haviland saw immediate ROI and expected to pay back the investment within a year.

Communication and Engagement

Redzone improved communication across teams and between managers and employees at Haviland. Operators now record a video ticket when something goes wrong, so an intermittent problem gets captured on the spot. “Previously, when the operators put in a work order for maintenance to fix a problem, many times it wouldn’t occur when the maintenance technician showed up,” says Chandra DeGood. “Now, operators can capture exactly what they’re seeing so that the technicians know where to focus their efforts.” 

Industrial Repack Supervisor Isaac Vega says the tools give him a faster way to troubleshoot. "Redzone is a problem-solver," he says.

"Redzone gives manufacturing employees a digital identity and a voice," says Cindy Van Linden, Vice President of Human Resources. "They can use the system to document issues and how they're solving them."

Redzone also translates work instructions and other communications into employees' native languages, enabling Haviland's Spanish-speaking employees to contribute as much as its English-speaking staff.

Managers and leaders also use the app to recognize individual and team wins. "Our teams enjoy it when they get high-fives from their supervisors and upper management. It's a morale booster," says Chandra DeGood.

"I love being able to open my iPad and see which employees are working on which line, what the success they're having that day looks like. When I go out onto the floor I already know and I'm equipped with the information for how their day is going and what support they might need." – Meg Post | President & CEO, Haviland‍

Conclusion

"Using Redzone has proven that we can create new efficiencies without having to do capital expenditures," says Chandra DeGood. "As an employee-owned company, we can drive profitability by fixing things ourselves."

When asked what advice she'd give peers, Post says, "When you're considering Redzone, don't just look at the productivity gains you can achieve with the solution. Look at how your employees are now communicating with each other, across business functions and about business challenges. Employees thrive when they're given the tools to be successful every day."

"By improving our business with Redzone, we're impacting the lives and retirement of our workforce every day," Post concludes.

See how Redzone can drive similar outcomes for your manufacturing operation. Request a demo.