📋 Case Study

Food Packaging Plant: High-Speed Form-Fill-Seal Upgrade

Bottleneck limiting line throughput; unable to meet demand surge (+35% YoY)

🏗️ Project Overview

Replacement of legacy 40-bpm vertical form-fill-seal machine with 120-bpm servo-driven system

🎯 Challenge

Bottleneck limiting line throughput; unable to meet demand surge (+35% YoY)

🔧 Design Approach

Modular upgrade with predictive maintenance sensors, HMI-integrated KPI dashboard, and quick-change tooling

📐 Design Diagram

Raw Film FFS Module 120 bpm → +80 bpm Sealed Pkg Sensors HMI Dashboard KPI: OEE, Downtime, BPM QCT Bottleneck: 40 bpm → 120 bpm ROI: $1.38M/yr NPV: $267K/yr

AI-generated project design illustration

📐 Key Calculations

Throughput Gain ROI

(120−40) bpm × 60 min × 16 hrs × 250 days × $0.18 margin/part
Result: $1.38M/yr
Revenue uplift from unmet demand

Downtime Reduction NPV

12% downtime → 3.5% downtime = +2,100 productive hours/yr × $127/hr line cost
Result: $267,000/yr
Cost avoidance from lost production

📊 Results

ROI: 22.8%; Payback: 2.1 years; Line utilization increased from 62% to 94%

💡 Lessons Learned

  • Quick-change tooling reduced changeover from 45 to 8 minutes
  • Predictive alerts cut unplanned downtime by 63%
  • Integration with MES enabled real-time ROI tracking

Key Takeaways

  • 1Quick-change tooling reduced changeover from 45 to 8 minutes
  • 2Predictive alerts cut unplanned downtime by 63%
  • 3Integration with MES enabled real-time ROI tracking