Striving for Multi-Site Maintenance Excellence
…but beware of the pitfalls
What if you are a company with multiple sites around the world and you want to ensure that all maintenance organisations operate in the same way? Not only to be able to compare performances, but also to ensure that the best practices from the different sites are selected to formulate a standard working procedure. It’s quite a challenge, but DS Smith is doing it.
DS Smith is a leading, worldwide provider of sustainable packaging solutions, paper products and recycling services. They operate in more than 34 different countries. To enable sustainable performance, the company concluded that there is room for improvement in standardisation in Engineering & Maintenance. Gareth Morgan, Group Head of Engineering at DS Smith, says: “We needed a good Maintenance & Assessment Framework that can be used and adopted in the several packaging factories, paper mills and recycling plants, even if they are in different market segments and situation. The VDMXL methodology from Mainnovation forms the basis for a multi-site assessment programme in 12 different plants.”
Improvement Program
Remco Jonker is Partner at Mainnovation: “To achieve multi-site maintenance excellence, it is essential to adopt a very structured approach. Present a company-wide improvement program with knowledge exchange, clear objectives, a standardised work process, and a focus on successfully applied best practices.”
Morgan adds to this: “We introduced a Global Improvement Program. This program serves as an overarching structure that enables annual benchmarking, setting realistic performance goals, and aligning site-specific improvement plans. At each location, we started with a VDMXL Assessment to help determine where to focus on and which practices have the biggest impact.”
The fun aspect
Also, it is important to make it fun and pay attention to the needs of the people on the work floor to prevent the ‘not-invented-here syndrome.’ “When work methods are imposed without looking at the specific situation at each location, this leads to resistance,” says Jonker. ”But providing the team with insights into KPIs with the benchmarking framework and also using internal competition to keep each other sharp makes it exciting. It becomes fun, and that also helps to create support and commitment.”
Through benchmarking, DS Smith was able to assess the maturity of the factory, gain achievable insights, and foster engagement at every operational level. Morgan: “By encouraging knowledge sharing and the dissemination of best practices across sites, DS Smith was able to foster a culture of continuous improvement while respecting local autonomy. And yes, this brings a smile to everyone’s face, including management.”
Do you want to hear more about multi-site maintenance excellence? Join the 2.1.1 Multi Site Maintenance Excellence case presentation on November 5, from 9:00 AM to 9:35 AM in Gorilla 1. We hope to see you there.