Lean genie in a bottle

Aura-Soma based in Tetford, East Lincolnshire and established 22 years ago by Vicky Wall and the current chairman Mike Booth in his garden shed, produces unique bottles for their 'Colour-Care-System'. The dual coloured bottles which contain essential oils, plant extracts, gems, minerals and water are for the spiritual wellbeing of its customers around the world.  The company called in MAS when it needed help and advice on ‘lean manufacturing’ in order to make the bottling process more efficient.

Going 'lean' means getting rid of all waste across every area of a manufacturing operation to increase the speed a component travels through the production process. At Aura-Soma there were two main areas of inefficiency in production.  The first was that all the bottles had to be washed, cleaned and dried before they were used and the second was the length of time of the changeover between one set of liquids to another. During this changeover, which was taking 35 minutes, the workers were also walking 150 metres to the sinks which was again adding to the waste of time.

MAS practitioner Malcolm Brown devised solutions to these time and money wasting dilemmas: "Firstly we needed the supplier of the glass bottles to guarantee they would be ready for use on arrival and not need cleaning.  Aura-Soma was wasting one full person's labour on the cleaning process.  Secondly we needed to change the layout of the machinery to save the five or six daily trips of each worker to the sink. This was easily achieved by moving the sink behind the automated machines. I expect that Aura-Soma has saved in excess of £30,000 to £40,000 per year on these two changes alone."

A new supplier was secured for the 50ml glass bottles and less than 18 months after Malcolm’s first visit to the company, the new glassware is in use.  The space on the factory floor is also now used efficiently, which has resulted in the two workers who set the machines walking 300m less each day and the set-up times on machinery changes reducing by 20%.  Two new jobs have also been created as line support to production manager Wayne Baker.  These new employees have direct meetings with Malcolm to keep him updated on the progress of the project.

"Malcolm is a brilliant mentor and guide.  Not only has he made our system more efficient but it has had a positive knock-on effect, with the quality of our product also improved.  I would certainly consider using MAS again in the future," commented Wayne.

Aura-Soma distributes the coloured essences to 55 countries worldwide. At present there are 55 employees and plans are being drawn up for a new purpose-built site, which would incorporate all the 'lean' manufacturing devices Malcolm has highlighted.