Meat+Poultry - January 2017 - 70

P L A N T O P E R AT I O N S

"The ability
to change the
system for the
greater good
is great and
then it impacts
all of the
Leading2Lean
customers,
not just West
Liberty Foods."
- CHAD WILLIAMS

70

"With the visibility of all maintenance
activities in the Leading2Lean (L2L) system,
it provides our leadership teams a powerful
tool to manage their business units," Williams
explains. "The data we capture not only helps
our maintenance teams manage the day-to-day
operations, but gives them the ability to
strategically plan for future maintenance
activities."
More specifically, West Liberty Foods
wanted to focus on its meat processing
operations and how this new system would
affect the maintenance side of its business.
"What we have done is utilize the
Leading2Lean customer support base, which
includes companies from meat processing
to synthetic gem manufacturing, to share
ideas and experiences," Williams says. "L2L
supports this community where collaboration
is emphasized. What some people don't
understand about this system is that it pushes
your team to continually evolve in the effort to
improve your processes."
In making these changes, the company
reduced employee turnover by 50 percent,
achieved 89 percent utilization of its
maintenance workforce and improved
operational availability in at least one of its
five plants to 96 percent - an increase of
nearly 10 percent.
Founded in 1996, West Liberty Foods (WLF)
is a US meat processing company owned by
the Iowa Turkey Growers Cooperative. The
company manufactures products for wellknown foodservice and retail customers both
nationwide and internationally.

MEAT+ POULTRY | 01.17 | www.meatpoultry.com

AUTOMOTIVE ROOTS
Leading2Lean has roots in the automotive
manufacturing industry. When the company
first started out it found many of its ideals
from automaker, Toyota, which used the
Kaizen philosophy. That way of thinking
aims to eliminate waste in all areas of an
organization through improving standardized
activities and processes.
"We share ideas. We make suggestions,
and they take it to heart. They evaluate the
suggestions and implement them as needed
for the entire customer base," Robert Argyle,
Leading2Lean's chief customer officer says.
Leading2Lean strives to build not only a
technical, professional network but a personal
one. Argyle says applying the system's
manufacturing techniques at WLF is not that
much different than other companies it has
worked with throughout the years.
"In most cases, we are finding out that
making food isn't a whole lot different than
making rockets," Argyle explains. "The issues
and problems that need to be solved aren't
that different."
Also, working with Williams at WLF and his
passion for detail has made Argyle's experience
special with West Liberty Foods.

West Liberty Foods

West Liberty Foods issued
tablets to all workers, from
the CEO to the floor, so
access to the new system
could be streamlined.

One feature Williams enjoys about the
system is the ability to interact with other
companies using it. Leading2Lean has a broad
range of clientele, including Tesla, Autoliv and
US Synthetic, just to name a few. The system
allows WLF to tap into these companies and is
encouraged to exchange ideas as part of their
participation in the program.
"The ability to change the system for the
greater good is great and then it impacts all
of the Leading2Lean customers, not just West
Liberty Foods," Williams says.
Another piece that helped WLF save money
was extending the life of the equipment with
alerts and programs used to maximize the
performance of equipment.
"We are currently engaged with our
critical equipment manufacturers to develop
and implement automated escalation
procedures for downtime situations using the
Leading2Lean system," Williams says. "The L2L
system offers us a wide range of customizable
alerts for our processing equipment."
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Meat+Poultry - January 2017

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