You’ve probably heard the saying that ‘what gets measured, gets managed’. At Kraft Heinz, they believe that what gets me
Posted: Fri May 20, 2022 6:08 am
You’ve probably heard the saying that ‘what gets measured, gets
managed’. At Kraft Heinz, they believe that what gets measured,
gets improved.50 Kraft Heinz is a global company that manufactures
three main types of food products: sauces, convenience meals and
infant nutrition products (baby food). (It was previously known as
Heinz but was taken over by Kraft in 2015.) The company employs
more than 41,000 staff worldwide and generates over US$26 billion
in sales per year. To facilitate continuous improvement to its
products and processes, Heinz (as it then was) developed the Heinz
Global Performance System (HGPS). The HGPS was designed to
establish a globally consistent approach to improving productivity
and embed it in the organisation’s culture. The system has two
elements: (1) improving productivity at each factory, and (2)
establishing a global system for managing performance improvements
across all the company’s factories. In individual factories, the
HGPS improves productivity by fostering employee ideas about
minimising wastage and loss, improving production scheduling and
planning, maximising the use of manufacturing assets and reducing
downtime. The first step is engaging and empowering the entire
workforce to focus on continually improving efficiency and
productivity. This involves teaching staff how to engage in
continuous improvement processes, training work teams in
problem-solving techniques and training improvement facilitators to
act as change leaders. Then a site assessment determines the
opportunities for improving factory productivity through techniques
such as a loss and waste analysis and identifying profit
improvement projects. The global system tracks the performance at
every individual factory, including its progress in implementing
its roadmap and achieving productivity improvements. This allows
the company to compare the performance of factories in different
locations and lets individual factories benchmark themselves
against other factories in their region. Within two years of its
introduction, the HGPS was being used across the company’s
operations in Europe, North America and Asia, including the four
Australian factories in Echuca (Victoria), Wagga Wagga (New South
Wales), Mill Park (Melbourne) and Northgate (Brisbane). And its
benefits for enhancing productivity were already becoming apparent.
At the Brisbane factory, improvements have been particularly
dramatic. The factory produces canned pineapples as well as bottles
and boxes of pineapple juice. It has a permanent workforce of 400,
which swells to 600 between February and June – the peak of the
pineapple season. The HGPS has instituted a new focus on constantly
monitoring performance and improving processes. Before each shift,
team members meet to discuss the achievements of the previous
shift, calculate savings achieved by productivity improvements and
address any issues that affected production. In the factory, charts
display hourly production rates, and red, green and yellow colour
markers indicate how production levels are tracking against targets
so that employees always know how the factory is performing.
Improvements made under the program have directly increased
pineapple yield – the amount of the pineapple that goes into the
can or bottle – saving Kraft Heinz $4 million per year. But the
biggest changes have been to the culture in the factory itself.
Encouraging staff to focus more closely on productivity has
generated a new emphasis on creativity and problem solving in which
employees are more comfortable making suggestions about ways to
improve production processes. So much so that the Brisbane factory
has ‘gone from the bottom of the ladder to playing in the finals’,
according to Simon Leonard, Kraft Heinz’s general manager of
operations, and winning ‘Factory of the Year’ two years running at
the company’s annual awards.
13.13 How has Kraft Heinz developed a new controloriented
culture focused on improving productivity?
managed’. At Kraft Heinz, they believe that what gets measured,
gets improved.50 Kraft Heinz is a global company that manufactures
three main types of food products: sauces, convenience meals and
infant nutrition products (baby food). (It was previously known as
Heinz but was taken over by Kraft in 2015.) The company employs
more than 41,000 staff worldwide and generates over US$26 billion
in sales per year. To facilitate continuous improvement to its
products and processes, Heinz (as it then was) developed the Heinz
Global Performance System (HGPS). The HGPS was designed to
establish a globally consistent approach to improving productivity
and embed it in the organisation’s culture. The system has two
elements: (1) improving productivity at each factory, and (2)
establishing a global system for managing performance improvements
across all the company’s factories. In individual factories, the
HGPS improves productivity by fostering employee ideas about
minimising wastage and loss, improving production scheduling and
planning, maximising the use of manufacturing assets and reducing
downtime. The first step is engaging and empowering the entire
workforce to focus on continually improving efficiency and
productivity. This involves teaching staff how to engage in
continuous improvement processes, training work teams in
problem-solving techniques and training improvement facilitators to
act as change leaders. Then a site assessment determines the
opportunities for improving factory productivity through techniques
such as a loss and waste analysis and identifying profit
improvement projects. The global system tracks the performance at
every individual factory, including its progress in implementing
its roadmap and achieving productivity improvements. This allows
the company to compare the performance of factories in different
locations and lets individual factories benchmark themselves
against other factories in their region. Within two years of its
introduction, the HGPS was being used across the company’s
operations in Europe, North America and Asia, including the four
Australian factories in Echuca (Victoria), Wagga Wagga (New South
Wales), Mill Park (Melbourne) and Northgate (Brisbane). And its
benefits for enhancing productivity were already becoming apparent.
At the Brisbane factory, improvements have been particularly
dramatic. The factory produces canned pineapples as well as bottles
and boxes of pineapple juice. It has a permanent workforce of 400,
which swells to 600 between February and June – the peak of the
pineapple season. The HGPS has instituted a new focus on constantly
monitoring performance and improving processes. Before each shift,
team members meet to discuss the achievements of the previous
shift, calculate savings achieved by productivity improvements and
address any issues that affected production. In the factory, charts
display hourly production rates, and red, green and yellow colour
markers indicate how production levels are tracking against targets
so that employees always know how the factory is performing.
Improvements made under the program have directly increased
pineapple yield – the amount of the pineapple that goes into the
can or bottle – saving Kraft Heinz $4 million per year. But the
biggest changes have been to the culture in the factory itself.
Encouraging staff to focus more closely on productivity has
generated a new emphasis on creativity and problem solving in which
employees are more comfortable making suggestions about ways to
improve production processes. So much so that the Brisbane factory
has ‘gone from the bottom of the ladder to playing in the finals’,
according to Simon Leonard, Kraft Heinz’s general manager of
operations, and winning ‘Factory of the Year’ two years running at
the company’s annual awards.
13.13 How has Kraft Heinz developed a new controloriented
culture focused on improving productivity?