Brewery

Nile breweries embarked on aformalized jurney to World Class in 2008. This with the view to taking a really good team of people and empowering them with the skills to grow various business functions, to realize better outputs from the production functions, with reduced cost, environmental responsibility and increased quality & safety.

Kick off assessment –Aug 2008
Planning & Awareness
Implementation structure in place –Oct 2008
Train the trainer completed (Technical HOD’s)-April 09

Organizational Design
Utilities –Oct 08
Brewing –April 09
Packaging –June 09

Foundational GEMs roll out to shop floor
All shop floor teams trained –Oct 09
Focus is on Anchoring

Pillar GEMs roll out to shop floor
Train the Trainer – Jan 2010
Phased roll out of pillar GEM'S - Jan 2010

GEM’s Roll Out Plan (Next 15 month’s)


This journey started with a ‘GEMsAssessment’ which assessed the maturity of various practices, against a framework that provides guidance for growth. This provided a current state viewpoint around the following ‘Foundation’ practices:
– Leading & Managing Change
– Focused Improvement
– Teamwork
– Performance Measurement & Control
–Workplace Organisation& Discipline (5S)
– Some of the more specialised practices were also assessed over time i.e:
– Safety, Health & Environment
– Quality
– Asset Care
– Autonomous Maintenance These results were represented on a scale of 1-5 (Stage 1-5) and used to develop action plans, that fitted into an overall GEMS implementation plan. The GEMs is a set of customised assessment questions, supported by CCI-GrowthCon’s TRACC material, to indicate what ‘Stop & Think’ actions need to be taken as well as detailed ‘Implementation Actions’, to assist a particular department and overall the complete brewery, to develop and grow the best practices relating to the items above.

Exciting Progress!!

The Nile Breweries Management took the results from the assessment seriously and embarked on an immediate journey to improve not only practices, but also unlocking the potential within the workforce (early 2009). A Steering Committee was formed which embarked on making strategic decisions around managing the journey e.g. Implementation Structures, Task Force members and responsibilities, Risk Management for the project, Potential Barriers and a Rewards & Recognition programme. This Steering committee provides continuous guidance to the TaskForces and everyone involved in the journey, and has been instrumental in supporting the shopfloor personnel in embarking on a Continuous Improvement journey.
Some key focus areas and results (from a Best Practice point of view) have been as follows:

Foundation Practices

• Great effort has been exerted by the management team to get buy-in from all the people in the brewery. This led to an improved relationship between functions like Engineering & Production, and others! A sense of excitement can be felt at shopfloor level when engaging with operators or craftsmen, about a better working environment, better results, less unplanned events, and generally a better and stronger morale. Teamwork training has been performed at various levels within the workforce to ensure there is goal alignment between different teams and different departments. Team leaders were trained to assist them to perform better in their roles, e.g. facilitation skills, managing meetings etc. Teamwork has improved significantly since the start of the journey.
• Visual boards have been installed in the workplaces where the teams meet on a daily basis (every shift) to set targets for the shift and review performance afterwards. Teamwork obviously plays an important role in the measurement of Team results, hence the focus on teamwork. To assist with the discipline required within a team a particularly with the execution of certain specialised practices e.g. Quality & Asset Care, a formal programme has been introduced to increase the cleaning &organisaint capability of each team. The 5S GEM was used for this to assist the teams in developing 5S areas, 5S audits and measurements. The goal off course to create a sustainable clean &organised workplace and operating environment.
• “Bill was the “Father of SAB” maintenance practices and worked for SAB for many years as the chief consultant. He has been the mentor of many SAB people on maintenance, me being one of his first SAB students” says Gavin van Wijk, the Technical Director for Nile Breweries Limited.


The Way Forward

• An exciting year is lying ahead for Nile Breweries, in that the Foundation Practice implementation has momentum, and a lot of focus is already being placed to anchor these practices and get everybody to align themselves consistently to the goals that have been set.
• The Champions are focusing on ensuring the Team Leaders has enough support to drive the best practices into their areas, and create ownership amongst team members. A decision was taken by the Nile Breweries steercom on the way forward i.e. roll out of Asset Care and Autonomous Maintenance. This is the next set ofGEMs that are going to enjoy focus for the next two quarters, not forgetting sustainability of the foundational GEMS.
• A strategy has been formulated for asset Care & Autonomous Maintenance and some practical implementation steps have been initiated to ensure focus on the critical machines and improving the maintenance programme effectiveness and efficiency (i.e. ‘hands-on’ training will be delivered in March to ensure application of the correct inspection schedules and the correct allocation of tasks to Process Artisans and other resources).
• After the successful roll out of the new Organizational design, the need to have autonomous, self directed teams have continued to grow. These have been strongly supported by the CAP process to ensure the teams have the required skills to manage the business effectively within their area of responsibility.
• To this effect quality at source is being taken seriously by ensuring that after training of the process operators in packaging, they are then signed off as being competent. Series of assessments are now running to get all the process operators signed to own up quality at source.


The Trio: Assessment in progress. Packaging Manager (Isaac Ongora) and Packaging Laboratory Specialist (Nicholas Eribankya) assessing the Filler Process Artisan (MuzamilMatega), on Filler Quality Process checks

Specialised Practices (Pillar Practices)

• With the Foundation Practice rollout progressing satisfactory against plan, the management team embarked on some more spcialised practices to increase availability of equipment, increase the sustainability of the Brewery’s quality practices as well as raise the awareness levels of environmental management.
• Particularly on the Asset Care front, training has commenced with Engineering as well as Production personnel, to establish a sound foundation of understanding for the Asset Care GEM implementation. Many good practices have already been established in the past (e.g. development of some reliability based maintenance schedules for some key machines) but the team felt they needed to manage their Asset Management growth against the framework that the GEMs provides.
• The NBL team showed incredible commitment and excitement towards the Asset Care training that was delivered and the plotted way forward.

What has worked

• The good background of the performance management implementation –prerequisite
• Empowerment of teams (skills, facilities, tools etc)
• R & R system in place
• MDM in place timely -prerequisite
• The involvement of workers union
• Good communication
• HOD’s and TLs as TOTs
•The ability to stop & slow down where required
• Role clarity especially for team leaders (New OD)
• Team leader monthly focused group

Focus areas

• CAP assessments
• A lot of training has been done and need for constant support through coaching
• Problem solving skills
• PIPs
• Water & Energy usages
Integrated manufacturing audit action plan review