What the Food & Beverage industry gains from a digital lean approach

*By Felipe Pereira

Nowadays, Food & Beverage industry accounts for 19% of all Brazilian industrial production and its representativity keeps growing. According IBGE data, in 10 years, its share has increased by almost the double and the segment, despite all the challenges, has become the most representative in manufacturing industry. And, according researches, its tendency is keep growing.

Click on figure 1 at the end of the text

This scenario is a great opportunity for companies in the segment, considering national and international markets. Therefore, staying competitive plays an important role, because it enables companies to take full advantage of this promising market. According ABIA data, the performance of net revenues (in billions of Reais) in Food & Beverage industry has been growing rapidly in Brazil over the past 8 years.

Click on figure 2 at the end of the text

However, many companies had unsuccessful experiences when tried to grow and become more profitable managing activities not directly linked to creating value for their customers. The search for financial profits in the stock market, as well as the abundance of financing on special conditions compared to the market, are examples of risky business approaches that deviate us from our mission. The most reliable path to success will continue to be competitiveness, the ability to create more value for an increasingly demanding customer, in a market plenty of options.

Lean x Digital

New technologies have contributed a lot for companies increase their performance, productivity and service offers to the market. However, what makes companies even more competitive is the efficiency of their processes.

The ability to continuously identify and eliminate waste in processes is what allows us to be more competitive, maximizing the value creation for the company. Thus, the Food & Beverage industry has great potential, as there is a natural (and legitimate) concern related to the safety and quality of its products. The impact of a process or product failure puts consumers’ health at risk. It is also important to mention the regulatory issue, which is very important, but often inhibits the potential of improvements in the process.

For example, increasing equipment reliability is a key-factor to efficiency in the process industry. There is a specific approach to maximize the use of resources, bringing a reduction in unwanted downtime and in rework, and increasing the productivity. Consequently, it is possible to increase production capacity, which enables sales increase, having a direct effect on business profitability.

To sum up, Lean’s concepts and tools perfectly fit the needs and challenges of the Food & Beverage industry. STAUFEN has decades of experience in improvement projects in this segment, helping players such as Coca-Cola, Heineken, Nestlé, among others, to improve the performance of their processes and outcome.