When it comes to reducing costs in the food industry, effective weight control of the finished product can give huge savings. In this case study, we used statistical process control (SPC) to save our client £300,000 per year.
A leading international manufacturer of convenience foods contacted our consultancy team. They were concerned about the giveaway above the declared weight for one of their most popular products, Quiche Lorraine.
Defining the problem
With any packaged food product, if the finished product weight is too high, the company is essentially giving away free product. If it is too low, the company may fall foul of weights and measures regulations. So, controlling product weight is vital for any food manufacturer.
In this case, the product (Quiche Lorraine) was produced in the raw state and then baked. The weight control therefore had to be on the raw product. However, the company did not have an accurate measure of the weight loss during baking, and instead were working on their best-informed guess.
Data Gathering
A data gathering exercise was completed to establish weight loss during baking. This was done by weighing the raw quiches and then the same items after baking. This exercise was spread over several production runs to allow all sources of variability to have their effect.
Establishing a Relationship
From this data, we were able to establish a relationship between raw weight and cooked weight for each variety and size of raw quiche. The exercise showed that the company’s best guess at the weight loss during the baking process was way out, resulting in an excessive giveaway.
Developing Control charts
Once the relationship was established, we were than able to produce target weights for each variety and size of raw quiche, that would satisfy the legislation for declared weight of the finished product after baking.
Control charts were set up for the new target weights in the raw state. This resulted in small savings in raw materials for each quiche produced.
Counting the cost savings
The entire exercise involved around 4 days’ work for our consultant Sam Turner. In comparison, the cost savings for the company were immense. The project resulting in savings for the company of about £300,000 in raw materials per year.
Find out More
If you would like to know how our statistical consultancy service can help your company improve processes to save money and increase profits, please call us today on +44 (0) 1423 865955
To find out more about how Statistical Process Control can help your company to assess and improve a process, to achieve far better quality and considerable cost savings, book now for our “Statistical Process Control” course.
Photo by Arnaud 25 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons