Change of Perspective


A lot was going on in Mannheim in early summer. First, the Global Technology team from the RCH BU analyzed the Rhein Chemie site, and then the Site Diagnostics team from Operational Excellence visited for four weeks. The goal of the efforts was to optimize production under the current conditions. The preliminary result is that, if all the identified proposals are implemented, manufacturing costs would likely drop significantly. The team is now in the process of implementing them.



It looks more like a leisurely stroll when Plant manager Dirk Kaempfer walks around the grounds and through the production halls of the Rhein Chemie plant in Mannheim. In the old days, people would have said: “The boss is making sure everything’s in order.” But Kaempfer can only laugh at such phrases. “I consider it my responsibility to ensure that my team has the best possible conditions to do their work. And that means I have to be visible and approachable to them, too.” It also means that he always knows what’s going on. He’s close to the action – to his employees and the production process. When the weather turned hot this summer, Kaempfer was glad that he had provided his employees with cooling vests, thanks to the company health management initiative. They are simply worn under a work jacket and consist of individual small cooling pads. As he walks, he mulls things over in his mind.

The staging area in front of one of the buildings was always a thorn in his side. The pallets of raw materials piled up there. But why? Shift foreman Sven Müller provided the answer: “Our logistics colleagues have to empty their trucks quickly and aren’t integrated into our processes in such a way that they know where each raw material belongs. They can’t put them where they go. That creates a lot of work for us.” In times when every worker has a precisely planned day, such a delay in the process can lead to production stoppages. This problem has now been eliminated under the item “raw material supply production logistics.” The Operational Excellence Site Diagnostics (OESD) and Global Technology teams recognized in their process analyses that such delays have a greater impact than the layman would suspect. An agreement was reached with the logistics specialists that they would now deliver their pallets directly to the right spot. This alone can increase production by up to 300 tons per year.

As a result of these analyses, campaign lengths have now also been changed to increase efficiency. This refers to how much of which product is produced in one go. “We are now manufacturing for stockpiling, too – even if it’s not much,” explains Kaempfer. This is an advantage, because the systems have to be cleaned and sanitized every time the product is changed –
a process that takes hours. “Now instead of producing a single product for eight hours on three different days, we run the process for 24 hours straight. This eliminates several cleaning steps.” Which the team is happy about. After all, who likes to clean? But couldn’t this have been done earlier? “Theoretically yes, but we were always pressed for time – including with the other products.” The OESD team gave them the backing they needed to talk to customers and break the cycle, even if it meant that a particular product would then have a longer delivery time, albeit for a short period. “We’re extremely happy about this change.”

The issue of increasing the filler content, which was also one of the measures to emerge from the two teams’ analyses, was immediately addressed by the Mannheim team. In the past, for reasons of simplicity and speed, the raw material was only added to the mixing units in full sacks. Now they also use half-sacks. This has increased productivity – by an estimated ten percent. Having said that, the process is somewhat tricky, as the temperature, speed, and time in the unit all change with the increased fill quantity. This is where process engineer Uwe Kling comes in. He adapted the recipes. After about 20 production trials, productivity has actually been increased by slightly more than ten percent.

All in all, the teams came up with eleven improvement measures for the plant. These will, of course, also be applied worldwide as far as possible. India has also got off to a successful start with the increase in filling quantity.

Dirk Kaempfer welcomed the visit by the analysis teams: “The OESD team drew on our analyses and came up with additional measures. The great thing about the OESD team was that they really looked at everything. Meaning not only at the production process itself, but also at our service providers, suppliers, and even our accounting processes. “

The OESD team took a bird’s eye view and had everything in their sights – a view that’s easier to take when you aren’t in the thick of things every day. The eight-member team spent the entire month of June
analyzing Rhein Chemie, sometimes on site and sometimes digitally via Teams. There was a lot to do, and Kaempfer and his team gathered all the information they needed. “Everyone involved worked together extremely well,” says Kaempfer. Project manager Gerald John explains the goal of the OESD team: “The key to success is to fully exploit the potential of digital technologies. This starts with systematic data analysis and extends to the use of artificial intelligence. So it’s hardly surprising that data analysis techniques used in Mannheim were also able to identify opportunities for optimizing batch production processes. In addition, the focus was also on process management and automation.”

The OESD team also embraced the proposals previously put forward by the Global Technology team. “We’re testing all of the suggestions. After all, it is ultimately in all our interests to operate our plant in the best possible way and to produce as efficiently as possible,” says Kaempfer. In the coming months, the OESD team will pay the plant another visit. Then the agenda will include the analysis of the site services and the LAB BU production area. The goal is to continue pressing ahead with the optimization of the site as a whole. Since LAB and RCH have close business relationships with each other and the site shares many services, this could lead to further improvements. Currently, Dirk Müller’s team is at the LANXESS site in El Dorado, Arkansas, USA, together with employees from the PLA business unit.

The OESD team is confident that the plant’s manufacturing costs can be significantly reduced when the measures are implemented in Mannheim. “We want to make it happen,” says Kaempfer. Especially because they are all sensible measures and, to some extent, make the local employees’ jobs easier. This shows just how much a view of the big picture combined with an eye for detail can achieve – quite a lot.

Caption:
Process engineer Uwe Kling in a conversation with production employee Andreas Gerbershagen. Even though the recipe suggestions were already extremely precise, they still need to be adapted for everyday use. Photo on the left: The now empty staging area. The pallets of raw materials are now transported directly to the elevator by forklift and placed in the production area (photo on the right, below). This saves the employees a lot of work. The team is still in the transition phase and the logistics colleagues still have to practice this process. But Dirk Kaempfer can already see some progress: “Just looking at the empty staging area in front of the building lifts my spirits.“

Plant manager Dirk Kaempfer (left) in a conversation with production employee Werner Strittmatter. The production processes were reorganized, and the fully automatic packaging system is now being used to its full potential – resulting in a noticeable increase in productivity.

The other photos show the powder mixing line. The team is testing new processes here that should ultimately also increase productivity.


A more than 10% increase in production was achieved simply by increasing the fill level. Initial positive results have also been seen at other plants around the world. For example, India has already reported successes.


Spotlight on the Plants
The team of experts from Operational Excellence Site Diagnostics (OESD) analyzes and optimizes production at key LANXESS sites. Dirk Müller, head of the OESD team: “Our analyses essentially revolve around two key questions: On the one hand, do we have the right plant structure in place at our locations to meet customer requirements in the best possible way? And on the other hand, are we operating our plants optimally, i.e., with maximum efficiency? Getting to the bottom of these questions enables us to develop new solutions for our production areas that will increase our competitiveness.“ In this process, one thing is clear to him: “We can only find the best solutions by working closely with our colleagues in the respective business units. And that’s exactly what happened in Mannheim during our pilot project with Rhein Chemie.