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Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP)

Manufacturing Efficiency & Flow Improvement

With the help of: New York Manufacturing Extension Partnership (NY MEP)

About

Raymond Hadley Corp., located in Spencer, New York and established in 1892, provides custom blending and private label packaging to the food industry under their own brands and customer brands. Service offerings include product development, co-manufacturing/co-packaging, and ingredient sales. The company specializes in manufacturing, packaging and labeling baking and dry ingredient mixes.

The Challenge

The changeover process on Raymond Hadley Corp.'s main production line was leading to capacity constraints due to long clean times in addition to required re-cleans. Additionally, they were experiencing long retrieval times in the warehouse for material handling and retrieval, which resulted in inefficiencies with material handling and storage. For help, Raymond Hadley Corp. turned to AM&T, part of the New York MEP and the MEP National Network™.
From start to finish, our project was well-trained, well-planned, and well-executed, thanks in large part to Tom Enderby’s (AM&T) approach with our team and his overall project design and planning. The project was managed in a way that created buy-in from our team and provided real solutions to age-old problems that will benefit not just the targeted line, but our other manufacturing lines as well. The results were real, have proven to be sustainable, and will have a continued lasting impact on our throughput on a critical manufacturing line. After years of struggling with changeovers being our main manufacturing constraint, this project (due to its success) has shown our team the benefits of a well-run and well-executed project and helped build morale and buy-in for future projects. We look forward to working with the team from AM&T on future projects to help unlock additional capacity and drive the growth of our company.
— Jacinto Maratea, Chief Executive Officer

MEP's Role

AM&T's work with Raymond Hadley Corp. began with a changeover improvement project. The primary goal was to obtain at least a 20% reduction in changeover time. The secondary goal was to target no reductions in food safety measurements taken after changeovers. Additionally, the team wanted to line balance for each desired crew size for at least one conveyor line. When complete AM&T provided follow-up support to ensure successful transformation.

 

Next AM&T began a shipping and receiving warehouse improvement project, determining peak demand area. The project team created a value stream map of warehouse operations, tailored training to areas of improvement, put together an action plan for improvement, and provided follow-up support to ensure a successful transformation to the desired future state.

Raymond Hadley Corp. also contracted AM&T to provide “lean thinking” training and consulting support that resulted in the implementation of lean projects aimed at improving their changeover and shipping/receiving operations. This effort helped Raymond Hadley Corp. to increase their overall competitiveness, increase the productivity and capacity of their operations in dry fill food production, as well as better utilize current labor.

Created August 4, 2022