Reckitt Benckiser Reduces Washout Time by 56%

Reckitt Benckiser

Reckitt Benckiser, Inc., located in Hillsborough, New Jersey, is the world’s leading manufacturer of household cleaning products. Brands include Lysol, Woolite, Calgon, Wizard and Spray ‘n Wash. Reckitt Benckiser employs approximately 235 people in New Jersey, and has annual sales of approximately 4 billion dollars. Their corporate headquarters is located in Berkshire, United Kingdom.

Reckitt was introduced to the New Jersey Manufacturing Extension Program, Inc. (NJMEP) by Joe Mastrianni, an NJMEP Field Agent, who met with Rob King, Human Resources Manager. Mr. Mastrianni described the services of NJMEP, in particular, an Introduction to Lean Manufacturing workshop that was to be conducted in the Fall of 2000. Mr. King committed to send two of their key manufacturing people to this event.

After the attendees returned to the facility and provided feedback to Reckitt’s management, Stan Sienkiewicz, Aerosol Operations Manager, contacted Joe Mastrianni requesting assistance to reduce their washout changeover time from approximately 30 minutes to less than 10 minutes. Since, their high-speed packaging line was going to be down for four days, due to a feed station replacement and upgrade, Mr. Sienkiewicz inquired whether NJMEP could react quickly and have one of their Lean Manufacturing experts work together with the Reckitt Benckiser’s changeover team to drive the washout time down to the 10-minute goal.

A Kaizen Blitz was scheduled for the first and last day that the packaging line was down. This very focused and intense process improvement activity was led by NJMEP Lean Manufacturing consultant Mike Rothmeier, of Simple Solutions, and assisted by Joe Mastrianni. During the Kaizen Event the current changeover was analyzed using videotape and observation. Single Minute Exchange of Die principles were utilized along with other lean manufacturing concepts. The result was a plan that would achieve an 8-minute washout changeover. This could be accomplished with very little investment. Within two weeks the team had already driven the changeover time down to 13 minutes and by June 2001 they anticipate achieving their goal.

The total cost savings from this project is estimated to be $45,000. These packaging lines run at very high speeds and an increase in throughput, lowering operating costs and required work-in-process inventory will all be benefits of this project. As an added bonus to this project Mr. Sienkiewicz stated, “The information from this project was used on our Lysol packaging line and we have already reduced our changeover time from 35 minutes to 16 minutes.”

Mr. Sienkiewicz also stated that, “He was very pleased with the project. It was a good team approach, and numerous departments in the company were involved with the project. Most of the ideas (for the project) actually worked.” Reckitt Benckiser has completed other Lean Manufacturing projects with NJMEP as they continue to use this methodology to transform their business.

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