Creamy or Crunchy?

Unilever (Skippy Peanut Butter)

The Skippy family of peanut butter includes six different products that are packaged in more than 50 different products for sale around the world. NovaSim worked with Unilever's industrial engineering team to develop a SIMUL8 discrete event simulaiton model that was used to optimize overall production performance for the Skippy brand. 

Challenges

• Keeping the sugar mill and peanut roasting and grinding facility in sync with the batch production of the base product
• Coordinating the batch production and the complex system of pumps with the kettles, votators, cooling systems, and packaging lines
• Scheduling mixers to minimize changeovers as well as lost production time due to downstream equipment constraints

Model Inputs

• Weekly production schedules for each packaging line
• Production capacity for roasting with storage limitations
• Product specific production rates
• Product-to-equipment compatibility constraints
• Recipe-based changeover times for mixing
• Product and pack size changeover times for packaging
• Mixer-to-votator-to-production line capability matrix (equipment does not all work together)

Model Outputs

• Weekly schedule vs. completed adherence reports and charts
• Total production reports
• Equipment utilization report including working, changeover, stopped, and blocked percents
• Raw material inventory reports
• Packaging run report with gantt chart view
• Mixing report with gantt chart view