Critical Study on Application of Lean and Quality Management in AB Brewery

The Introduction of new product brands into the Nigerian market as a strategy to attract new
customers has had breweries’ struggling to meet product demands with the available capacity. In
order to increase production output and satisfy customers, operational efficiency is a topmost priority.
Production analysis reveals that the brewery is under-utilized her available production capacity due to
high machine breakdown, external and planned downtimes coupled with a huge amount of waste
generated within the system. These led to a comprehensive analysis of production problems of line 1
for 13 weeks, with the application of Correlation Analysis, Pareto Analysis, quality Analysis and
Toyota’s problem solving framework. The result of correlation analysis of running time against
production volume was 0.8, which is a positive trend and an indication of worthiness of production
volume positive relationship with running time, hence the need to reduce downtime to increase
running time. The result of Pareto Analysis shows that the External downtime was 46% of total
downtime, while Empty Bottle Inspector (EBI) and Washer were 12% and 10% respectively. The Unpacker
has the lowest downtime of 2%. In Quality Analysis, quality of raw material input affect
machine operation and increase waste generation. In Filler, when bad Crowner hooked at the rectifier,
production automatically stopped, a delay of 2 minutes will result in a high reject of filled bottles to
avoid foreign gas introduction to the beer. Stoppage at Filler and Labeler mostly affect production
flow. 50% of total wastes were generated at the Filler and Washer while Labeler recorded high
reworks and rejects.