More capacity, fewer forced weekends
Flexible 7-day schedules that ride seasonal swings without burning out your crews.
FOOD & BEVERAGE
The challenge
Weekly and seasonal swings drive up per-unit cost and make employees' lives unpredictable. Many plants wait until Thursday or Friday to decide whether to work the weekend, so people lose time off and the plans they made. Most schedules are inherited, based on tradition or copied from a nearby facility, and the hidden costs pile up in overtime, absenteeism, sanitation downtime and missed production. A good schedule can save millions. A bad schedule will cost money every year.
How we help
Analyze workload, sanitation cycles, absenteeism and seasonality to find the hidden capacity in the lines you already run
Design 7-day and 24/7 schedules that flex up and down with demand, with overtime that is voluntary for those who want it
Rework sanitation, raw material flow and equipment strategy (including our BEST Equipment Strategy) to cut starts, stops and idle time
Take employees and union leadership from skepticism to a schedule they vote for and keep
Typical results
"55% reduction in employee call-offs" and "10% more beer than the prior year" (Molson Coors)
"182 minimum days off per year, up from 104" (Sargento Foods)
"Up to 20% more production capacity" (Keystone Foods)
"deferment of nearly $30 million of capital" (Anchor Food Products testimonial)
"$1,200,000 in labor efficiency savings" (Monsanto Company testimonial)
Across 14 Land O'Lakes projects: "Production capacity increased by an average of 23%, while schedule flexibility reduced turnover by an average of 40%" (Land O'Lakes reference, Ken Litke, retired VP of Manufacturing & Supply Chain)
Increased production capacity, adding $1.5 million in profits (Perry's Ice Cream reference)
Seven day rotating schedules that helped the facility "increase productivity by 34 percent" (Anchor West, Inc. letter, Steve Cordova, Plant Manager)
What clients say
Coleman Consulting Group helped us reconfigure our sanitation and production scheduling. The results were fewer starts and stops, increased tons per employee and deferment of nearly $30 million of capital.
Gregory Brook, Vice President Operations, Anchor Food Products
...We wanted to maximize existing assets and improve the quality of life for our employees. ... The new schedule utilized our assets more efficiently, and we made the people generally very happy. Coleman Consulting Group was able to give us a foundation to build other positive changes for our company.
Scott McCurry, Vice President Manufacturing, Tropicana Products, Inc.
Working with unions
"Coleman's expertise in union negotiation, employee surveys and engagement, and the Coleman methodology was proven to save Land O'Lakes millions of dollars in overtime costs and improved capacity utilization." (Ken Litke, retired VP of Manufacturing & Supply Chain, Land O'Lakes) | Molson Coors: "55% reduction in employee call-offs", with a schedule chosen by employee vote after CCG worked "directly with our employees and union leaders" | /what-we-do/union-environments
Next step
Is weekend overtime eating your margins? Schedule a 30-minute workforce diagnostic.