Tasty Baking Company

Shop Floor Optimization Using SAP MII Technology

An applications-based initiative to introduce shop floor efficiencies that improve line operations, increase accuracy, and simplify reporting.

The Challenge

In May of 2007, Tasty Baking Company, makers of Tastykake® snack cakes, announced the relocation of its Philadelphia operations to facilities at The Navy Yard, a commercial and industrial development center in Philadelphia. The Navy Yard will be home to newly constructed, stateof-the-art Tastykake bakery operations and a “green” corporate headquarters, which represent a significant milestone in the company’s history.

With a focus on “best in class,” Tastykake realized the current shop floor could immediately benefit from an automated and integrated solution. Constrained with manual processes, delayed data entry, and inaccurate transactional and master data, Tastykake required a fresh approach to their current shop floor direction.

The Solution

To lead this initiative, Tastykake engaged Perot Systems, now part of Dell Services. With up-front goals to establish real-time production transactions and reporting metrics, our team leveraged SAP MII technology along with our company’s proven tools and process templates to deliver a world-class solution.

We worked with Tastykake to establish a shop floor baseline with a specific focus on production order confirmations. Starting with the cupcake line, the SAP solution leveraged the Dell Services MII templates to quickly implement a solution over a 10-week period. The final solution integrated shop floor printers with SAP MII to seamlessly consolidate machine and user confirmations into a single application. Based on lessons learned from the previous work, Phase 2 established direct integration to the case palletizer units with automatic confirmations on the bake cake line.

Real-time confirmations verified by shop floor operators interface directly into SAP while providing additional shop floor metrics around overall equipment effectiveness. Measurements around estimated versus actual production line run rates and case count reports are accessible on demand by operators and supervisors. The Shop Floor Project, which started out as an initial prototype, was so successful it is now ready to be expanded to multiple work centers within the same MII architecture.

The Results

The solutions increased timely visibility to shop floor status around overall equipment effectiveness. Production personnel have used this information to reduce errors, reduce rework and rejects, improve yields, and improve overall efficiency. Benefits achieved include:

• Improved visibility of shop floor status
• Reduced production process errors and increased inventory accuracy
• Increased production plant efficiency

The solution also provides a platform for rapidly rolling out production floor best practices as they are identified. The success of the prototype solution has established a solid platform for Tasty Baking Company to use for future shop floor enhancements.

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