CASE STUDY: Facility Benefits From Changing Cleaning Processes

Contributed by Veritiv.

A wholesale bakery company, was responsible for delivering doughnuts to all locations of a large coffee and baked goods chain for retail sale. As you can imagine, it was a daunting task.

Even more daunting was that doughnut production had to shut down completely every day while the staff worked to ensure the facility remained properly cleaned and sanitized at all times.

That cleaning time was a lot of lost dough (and doughnuts) for the company. They knew if they could get some of that production time back, they could make even more doughnuts. They could also improve their standard operating procedures, increase morale and reduce employee turnover. They just needed the right partner.

Veritiv took a LEAN cleaning approach to solve their top challenges. LEAN cleaning identifies hidden waste in several areas — from time to transportation. The goal is to deliver a cleaning process that is as efficient and effective as possible.

Veritiv LEAN Advisors observed the cleaning process and discovered that there were several types of waste interfering with ultimate cleaning productivity:

• Transportation: The production and cleaning team had to move and break down production equipment every night.

• Complexity: The staff had not developed standard operating procedures. This led to wasted time.

• Time: Too much time was used to transfer equipment.

• Labor: The staff was using too much equipment to sterilize the facility, which led to wasted labor hours.

The result of Veritiv’s LEAN report, and the changes made by the company, led to the same high cleaning standards they had before, but cut cleaning time by three hours every day. That was three additional hours our customer could spend making doughnuts.

Since working with the Veritiv team, the wholesale bakery company has boosted their bottom line and brand, with results including:

• An opportunity to increase revenue by $1.3 million in annual revenue.

• Reduced spend across all verticals — more than $50,000 dollars, annually, in one location bakery alone.

• Saved $19,710 a year in reduced labor costs.

• A three-hour reduction in staff cleaning time, freeing the team up to focus on other efforts.

• Increased production to include additional baked items, such as cookies, brownies and pastries, which they had previously outsourced.

• The highest score they’ve ever achieved from the American Institution of Bakeries.

The company is now working with Veritiv at their additional locations to expand their production time and revenue.