In the
first installment of this blog series, we discussed the escalation of the sugary drink tax and its effects on beverage manufacturers worldwide. To combat these fees—without passing the full expense on to consumers, which would inhibit sales—manufacturers must look for opportunities to make sustainable adjustments to their operations that exponentially reduce costs and optimize yield. When applied across the enterprise, these changes can also transform businesses and help manufacturers outpace their competition.
Product overfill is one area where beverage companies are metaphorically pouring money down the drain. While under-filling is not acceptable and would open a beverage company up to consumer lawsuits or government fines, adjusting specification limits closer to target fill heights—even a miniscule amount—can produce notable savings. Applying the same strategy across production lines and facilities throughout the enterprise adds up to millions in cost savings each year. But, companies continue to unnecessarily give away product because many don’t have the right technology, or the time or resources available, to take advantage of cost savings at this level.
Fortunately, there are ways to use quality data that has already been collected to find and act on these opportunities. An effective Quality Intelligence solution helps to quickly pull quality data from across operations into a centralized repository for analysis. Accessed via an internet browser, cloud-based software, or software-as-a-service (SaaS), solutions provide flexibility, reliability, mobility, and control while supporting hybrid cloud environments, automated and manual data collection, and a variety of existing infrastructures and databases.
The resulting “big-picture” visual of data from across the entire enterprise highlights opportunities for improvement that were invisible from a single-plant perspective. Instead of viewing quality data as just a means to identify and fix problems, manufacturers can dig deeper to determine which overarching trends contribute to a steady drain on profits. Adjustments to reduce variation, increase production, or decrease overfill directly impact the quality of the final product and thus generate massive savings when applied across the enterprise.
Beyond improvements within their own organizations, beverage manufacturers can also use quality data to collaborate with their suppliers, packaging companies, and other partners. Together, these parties create supply chain-wide visibility that enables them to streamline the product lifecycle, eliminate the risk of recalls, and reduce costs.
Beverage manufacturers must invest in quality control efforts to intuitively process the overwhelming amounts of data that today’s modern manufacturing industries generate. The resulting enterprise-wide visibility and operational insights will help them identify new and unique opportunities to improve operations and significantly increase cost savings that surpass the fees imposed by the sugary drink tax and contribute to the company’s bottom line. Global transformations of this magnitude generate a competitive edge in the marketplace and ensure viability and profitability for the future.