Premier drives Supernoodles efficiency

Premier Foods has dramatically increased the efficiency of Batchelors Supernoodles production at its Worksop factory following a three-month project dubbed ‘Noodles 65’

Supernoodles have been generating double-digit growth during the recession as they were perfect for shoppers looking for value, said factory general manager David Seeckts. “This was obviously great news for the business, but it did present us with a bit of a challenge operationally because both of our lines were already operating 24/7. We needed to deliver a significant increase in OEE [overall equipment effectiveness] to release more capacity or go down the co-manufacturing route.”

He added: “We managed to release 14% capacity in three months through a project called ‘Noodles 65’. We identified several issues that needed addressing, namely that we were running a 24/7 operation with no real shift management and a lack of visible performance management and review. We fixed these but that was the easy part.

“When we drilled down into the data it revealed that our number one cause of downtime was our flow-wrappers and this was because noodle block shape quality was too erratic and was causing jamming and blocking at the infeed sections of the wrapper.

“This was partly because of the disconnect between people in processing and packing and the skills and knowledge of the technical operators who didn’t always understand how important [Supernoodle] block quality was further down the line and were not sure how to look after the critical bits of equipment to produce a quality block. So we put a lot more focus on weekly maintenance activity and training.”

A lot of work has also been done to control the speed of the flow wrapper relative to the fill levels in the accumulator, he said.

Worksop has been at the epicentre of Premier Foods’ group-wide manufacturing rationalisation programme - dubbed ‘project Margaret’ - over the past 18 months as production has been consolidated into fewer, better-invested sites following the acquisition of Campbell’s UK business and RHM.

In total, about 1,500 lines have been transferred from ‘donor’ factories into five sites including Worksop, which has taken on Saxa Salt, Bisto and Sharwood’s sauces and puppodums.

Production at Worksop - a former Campbell UK site - doubled to 96,000t a year, while staff numbers increased from 352 to 607 and stock keeping units jumped from 160 to 362, said Seeckts.

*See October issue of Food Manufacture​ for the full interview with David Seeckts