Confiserie Napoleon: professionalisation, growth and knowledge transfer with EZ-GO

Continuous improvement

Reporting and following up on actions

Confiserie Napoleon is a household name: everyone knows their treats, whether it be the round lemon bombs or the throat lozenges. The company has been around since 1912 and underwent a considerable professionalisation process around ten years ago, by recording standards and work agreements. On paper, no less. Little had changed since. Except the situation: the company sees new growth opportunities, experienced employees retire and new people join.

Wim Rutten is floor manager at the Breskens location. “EZ-GO is exactly what we needed, because it kills several birds with one stone. Digitisation of checklists and work instructions ensures that tasks are always performed in the same way, that preventive checks are performed consistently and properly registered.”

“In addition, we realised that EZ-GO would help us facilitate communication between shifts. If a deviation is noticed during the dayshift, the necessary action can be communicated to another shift, and the result can be communicated straight back. The photo and video functionality makes reporting, assigning and handling these actions extremely easy and transparent. Problems are solved more quickly and we are able to prevent breakdown or standstill more often.”

Standards

Testing against standards

Process technologist Thijs Moorthamer clarifies: “It is important that we meet the BRC standards, which means we need to demonstrate that certain things have been done. We could be using paper, but this system makes it a lot faster and easier.”

“Plus, some of our products are halal certified, which means that our cleaning methods are approved by a halal testing organisation. Because our work instructions have been recorded into EZ-GO, this testing organisation is able to determine in advance that our production process is halal.”

Skill improvement

Training

The company has a very loyal workforce with a huge amount of experience and knowledge. Some of them will retire in the years ahead. How does one effectively transfer all of that knowledge? Wim Rutten: “Once again, EZ-GO proves a perfect solution. Work instructions with photos and videos are clear, unambiguous and great for training new staff. We also use EZ-GO to create tasks for managers, allowing them to test what skills employees possess and what they still need to brush up on.”

Implementation

Humble beginnings

Project lead Thijs Moorthamer is responsible for the implementation. “We kicked off with a small team: myself, our production coordinator Patrick Datthijn and another quality officer. Quality and production turned out to be a great combination. Both pay attention to different aspects and someone like Patrick adds thirty years of production experience to the process.”

“First, we tested several functionalities to get to know the system. Next, we created the checklists, tasks and audits for the cleaning activities of one production line. We also used that time to gauge responses from operators. They are mostly practically trained, and we were wondering whether a digital tool like this would catch on. As it turns out, they loved it because of its user-friendliness.”

Process

A one-day implementation

The implementation can be roughly divided into two stages, production coordinator Patrick Datthijn explains: “First, we updated the content. Many work instructions had not been updated for years, so we tested and updated them all. Plus, we created new photo and video material. Once everything was ready to go, we were able to enter all of the material for the first production line within a day.”

This method turned out to be very effective and was adopted for the other departments too. Thijs Moorthamer: “The work instructions and one-point lessons for all five production lines and all four packaging lines are now all in there.”

Expansion

Next step: audits

The next major step will be to implement audits. At the moment, it still takes a lot of time to conduct, register and follow up on audits. This is where Thijs Moorthamer expects the most efficiency gains: “Once again, we will work in two stages: first, revising the audit and arranging it more logically. In addition, I expect more time gains because audits will be digitally recorded directly, and actions assigned in real time. No more copy-pasting, uploading photos or mailing actions.”

On track

Results

Project sponsor Wim Rutten is content: “It’s been six months, and all lines have now been digitised. Actions are being followed up on more reliably, more quickly and communication between production and the technical department has improved. Plus, it shows in the production environment itself: materials are in order and tools are neatly stowed in the right place.”

“Communication with our weekly external cleaning service has improved considerably as well: there is now a fixed task list with boxes for them to tick and in the event of any feedback, it is relayed back and forth very conveniently. One thing we cannot do just yet, is measure whether or not we have reduced malfunction incidence, but I am convinced that we will find just that on the longer term. In addition, I am very pleased that we were able to secure the knowledge of our experienced staff and are training new employees at lightning speed.”

Benefits

Unexpected additional benefits

EZ-GO delivered several benefits nobody planned for, mainly because the iPad is now a central point of information. Patrick Datthijn: “General email notifications are circulated within the company on a regular basis. Some operators don’t check their email very often, which means they used to miss out on important information at times. These news emails can now be read on the same iPad that runs EZ-GO.”

Thijs experiences another benefit: “In the event of process deviations at night, operators now make videos and photos for me to review the next day. This allows me to make a proper root cause analysis and improve the process.”

And product development benefits too, Wim Rutten tells us: “When developing a process for a new product, we conduct 24-hour test runs. This allows us to see when a product begins to change colour, for example. Of course, nobody can attend that process for the entire 24-hour cycle. With EZ-GO, we now take a photo every hour, or we make videos that relay the necessary information, allowing us to organise the process with great accuracy.”