Household Disposables Manufacturer Gets 'Greener' by Increasing Recycling Capacity, Generating €1.25m p.a. of Efficiency Savings
Monday, 09 May 2011 00:00
Rutland Partners’ CeDo Group, one of Europe’s leading household disposables manufacturers, has significantly reduced their carbon footprint through a 31% increase in recycling efficiency at their facility in Geleen, The Netherlands, at the same time saving over €1.25m a year. The project, undertaken in partnership with operational improvement specialists Newton, follows on from an earlier performance improvement programme, which delivered annualised savings of over €0.8m in CeDo’s Polish operations.
CeDo, one of the largest recyclers in Europe, recycles agricultural, industrial and other plastic sheets into plastic regranulate which is subsequently used in the company’s disposable bag production process. Growing market demand, together with rising consumer interest in greener products, presented CeDo with the challenge of significantly increasing recycling levels by 31% annually.
Following a detailed assessment, Newton worked in partnership with CeDo to deliver enhanced visibility of operational performance and using bespoke tools to identify, quantify and prioritise opportunities to increase recycling performance. Opportunities focussed on delivering engineering changes to eliminate blockages and inherent line restrictions, whilst enhancing line speed and filter change frequency.
“As Newton’s consultants are engineers by background, they were able to rapidly identify and fix the problems that were holding up the line” commented Les Jakeman, Group Manufacturing Director at CeDo. “By applying multiple engineering fixes and process improvements, Newton helped the CeDo team significantly increase the performance of the lines . This huge success has resulted in a very motivated and skilled workforce, who have the full belief, ability, and drive to take the business forward”.
“Newton worked from the shop floor right through to management as this kind of improvement required both operational and cultural changes” said Tom Wedgwood, Director at Newton. “Through reorganising local teams, putting in place a formalised review process and various reporting tools, we have left CeDo with a sustainable and clear roadmap to continue to deliver their improvement targets”.
The programme delivered a 31% increase in output, exceeding both volume and recycling targets, and adding over €1.25m of annualised efficiency savings to the business.
“Rutland is extremely pleased with the results that Newton and CeDo are achieving across the business” said Ben Slatter, Partner at Rutland. “Since our acquisition of CeDo in late 2009, Newton has only worked in two areas of the CeDo Group delivering performance improvements delivering in excess of €2m per year.”