| Increasing
NPD Throughput at Oregon Freeze Dry
Submitted
by Al Huster
- Implemented
in 2002
- 35% increase
in throughput in 2003
- Another
65% increase in 2004
- Even
more gains anticipated in 2005
Oregon Freeze Dry is the
world’s largest diversified freeze-drying company,
producing a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, meats
and dairy products. OFD also produces two company
owned brands, Mountain House™ backpacking food
and Marine Cuisine™ boating food as well as
entrees for client companies. In a separate division,
OFD produces unique pharmaceutical, biological, and
chemical products made possible by their advanced
freeze-drying processes.
Since a large majority of
OFD’s business is with client companies, there
are frequent requests for new products or ingredients.
The need to increase both the quantity and the predictability
of new product development became critical and led
to the implementation of Realization's system in Feb.
2002.
Constraints Management Group
of Seattle provided the initial training on the underlying
concepts and software. Most of 2002 was spent gaining
expertise in the use of the system, including determining
the correct pacing resource and changing the corporate
culture to accept the principles and actions required.
Significant gains were achieved in 2003 when the completed
projects reached 35% above the 2000-2001 base level,
and in 2004 a 100% increase above the same base level
was achieved. As the system started showing results
with the sales driven projects, it was expanded to
include engineering and IS projects also. The most
important effect of our implementation was a significant
positive change in the rate of increase of company
profitability.
By late 2004 project throughput
had reached a plateau and therefore a new constraint
in the project system needed to be identified. It
was at that time that two OFD engineers attended Realization’s
Project Flow Master Modeling Class. The instructor,
Dr. Ajai Kapoor, presented the counter intuitive idea
that the constraint was not in the hands on resources
as had been thought, but rather in the ability to
deal with the uncertainties that surround specific
tasks. Following this, changes were implemented to
the project system that quickly provided direction
when a hands on resource encountered uncertainty that
delayed a task. Secondary objectives were to reduce
the remaining Parkinson’s Law and Student Syndrome
effects in our system. Some of the changes implemented
include daily resource manager meetings to review
all current red tasks, daily updates of all current
tasks, and not assigning tasks to resource managers
so that they can have more time to help their staffs
overcome problems and uncertainties that arise.
These changes were implemented
in Dec. 2004 and the results so far are encouraging.
In the first quarter of 2005, the project completion
rate was 10% above the rate for 2004, with a larger
average project size. These latest changes are still
relatively new at OFD, so additional gains are anticipated
as they are fully implemented.
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