Paperless Quality Checks Eliminate Hundreds of Thousands in Overpack Losses
The largest cheese cooperative in the U.S.
AMPI is the largest cheese cooperative in the United States. More than 1,400 farm families and nearly 1,000 employees are driven by a shared purpose: feeding people. AMPI's dairy farmer-owners produce high-quality milk on family farms across Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota, and collectively own eight Midwest manufacturing plants producing 10 percent of the nation's American-type cheese, processed cheese, and butter.
AMPI has executed a series of projects to optimize its plants and gain better visibility and control of product quality and process efficiency. 10in6 has helped two of the plants migrate their manufacturing from paper and spreadsheet-based information systems to real-time digital operations — with live feedback on efficiency, alerts for out-of-specification conditions, and tighter control of product quality.
"The 10in6 system provides the data we need to prioritize the highest impact fixes."
Reduce giveaway losses and digitize the shop floor
Dairy is a small-margin business, and giveaway — overweight product going out the door — directly impacts financial viability. AMPI had no real-time giveaway data and only limited trend data, so adjustments were always made after the fact.
Production and quality were essentially run on Excel: isolated spreadsheets for everything from quality check results to production counts and downtime reasons. There was plenty of data, but it wasn't networked, and turning it into decisions was slow and difficult.
- No real-time visibility into giveaway — adjustments always came after the loss
- Quality check results written on paper every 30 minutes, with no way to view trends
- Various disconnected spreadsheets as the source of production information
- Difficult to assemble information to focus improvement efforts
- Limited historical analysis of quality or efficiency issues
"After moving our quality checks to 10in6 it was the first time we had a good view of overpack. We used to write down check results on paper every 30 minutes but had no way to view the data in real time or historically for trends. We now receive real-time alerts so adjustments can be made immediately. This one change has resulted in significant savings."
10in6 modules deployed
AMPI implemented several 10in6 modules as part of its digitization initiative, with the goal of making faster and better-informed production decisions.
Production Reporting & Efficiency
- Mobile views to monitor the entire plant for quick decision-making
- Automated shift, daily, and weekly production reports
- Process variable tracking and alerting (moisture, salt, and more)
- Loss analysis by machine, shift, and part number
ERP Extended to the Shop Floor
- Demand plan converted from the ERP (JD Edwards) into production schedules
- Schedules delivered electronically to the lines — no paper handoffs
Scheduled Checks — Paperless Quality
- Alerting for quality checks due, out-of-spec conditions, and missed checks
- SPC charting and history to identify improvement opportunities
- Real-time alerts on product weights and giveaway
- Searchable history to confidently address customer audit requests
Label Printing
- On-demand printing (vs. batch) for better control
- Time-stamped individual labels for each case
"The automatically emailed reports are great. I can see all the downtime and quality issues, then review with the leads, so we know what to look into and what to watch for during the shift."
Data-driven, not best-guess driven
With real-time views of production and quality, historical trend analysis, alerts, and automated reporting, AMPI made improvements across multiple plants.
- OEE improved by 15% in the first 6 months
- Reduced giveaway, resulting in significant savings — with real-time weight alerts making immediate adjustment possible
- Enhanced traceability — individual case labels with date/time stamps, printed at the line
- Paper and label cost savings
- Improved visibility into product quality and variation, with SPC charts by line, product, plant area, or shift
- Modernized the factory — decisions made on information, not estimates
- Competitive advantage in acquiring new private-label customers
- Visibility into improvement opportunities focuses limited resources on the right issues
"We are now data driven; not best-guess driven. Before 10in6, the shift foreman used to put a line on a report about an issue, but we had no idea how big of a problem it was or how much production was lost because of it. Now we prioritize issues based on the impact on production, not how many times we hear about an issue."
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