Reduction in Egg Roll Temperature Project Example

Food manufacturer reduces WIP and lead time, saving $100,000 with a 4.8-month payback period--Kahiki Foods Inc. manufactures Asian-style frozenfoods. In 2008, Kahiki produced more than 5 million egg rolls. Of the company's product assortments, egg rolls took the longest time to ready for shipping because the temperature of the cooked egg rolls was too high and variable after initial freezing. To address the issue, Kahiki had inserted a second freeze step, but this created large amounts of work in process (WIP) and required significant additional material handling. Now faced with a waste issue, Kahiki focused a DMAIC project on improving the process capability of the first freeze step, post frying. A cross-functional team, led by an industrial engineering student and Green Belt candidate from the integrated systems engineering department at The Ohio State University, successfully applied Lean Six Sigma to the egg roll temperature problem. Define Prior to starting the DMAIC project,