Cargill is a global company in food, agricultural, financial and industrial products. In total, the company has 155,000 employees spread over 70 countries. The facility in Bergen op Zoom processes wheat into gluten, starch, glucose syrup and bioethanol. These are used in food, animal feed and industrial products.

The task

The position of Maintenance & Reliability Manager became vacant. To fill the gap during the search for a new employee, Mainnovation was asked to deploy an Interim Maintenance Manager to lead the department, draw up an improvement vision and start the implementation thereof. This should be done in such a way that a new Maintenance Manager, once employed, would be able to continue this approach and expand it further.

The approach

First of all, the current situation and developments were mapped using the Cargill improvement model. This improvement model, which was developed in an earlier project together with Mainnovation, is based on the VDMXL competence model. The status of each competency has been made transparent and the most important points for improvement were identified.

During the interim period, which ultimately lasted five months, the points for improvement to be be realized in the short term, were addressed. The focus was on structuring the work preparation and planning activities and prioritizing the activities of Reliability Engineers. The already present and partially implemented Cargill processes were used as a basis. During the interim period, the employees involved were coached to use them optimally so that the processes would actually contribute to improved factory performance. In line with this, attention has been paid to coordination and cooperation between the various disciplines within maintenance and with the production departments. In a weekly performance management meeting, the performance was jointly evaluated and improvement actions were determined.

During the project, the progress and priorities of the improvement agenda were regularly discussed and evaluated. If necessary, adjustments were made to new insights gained over the course of the period. At the end of the assignment, a handover period was planned to provide the new Maintenance Manager with all necessary input and to hand over the work. During this period, an improvement agenda was also drawn up jointly for the coming months, so that the new manager could get off to a flying start.

Mainnovations added value

Mainnovation has Interim Managers and Consultants who are used to quickly integrate into a new environment. In addition, they have the tools and experience to be able to make a quick analysis of the current situation and feasible improvement actions. In this way, in addition to running the normal activities in the department, it was possible to start up improvement actions very quickly.

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