Click to edit Master title A Practical Application of ......Click to edit Master title • Helps us...

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styleA Practical Application of Problem

Solving Tools in the Brewing Lab

Lauren Torres

Bell’s Brewery

MBAA Corner Brewing October 17, 2019

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style• Beer is complicated!

• Do more with less:

• People, money, time, buckets…

• Reconfiguring old systems to do new things

• New brand development

• Taking an existing system and applying it to

the idiosyncrasies of the brewery

• Something is broken

Why is problem solving important?

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Why is problem solving hard?

• Not fully understanding the problem

• Jumping to conclusions

• Not defining what success looks like

• Not measuring the impact of the changes

• Not empowering folks with skills

• Time isn’t allocated for the problem solving

process

• Summarizing is hard!

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style• Problem solving is a teachable

skill

• Practice makes permanent

• Folks will get better at this!

• Bring in new people for various

problem solving session

• Create a safe space

Problem solving is a skill

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Defining the problem

• Defining the problem is the more important step!

• Do not rush this! Defining the problem is often the

most time consuming and difficult part!

• Build a team with subject matter experts

• How does this problem fit into the big picture?

• May be as simple as “there is a crease in the cans

now after filling that didn’t used to be there”

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Measuring

• May be as simple as “there is a crease in the cans

now after filling that didn’t used to be there”

• Collect data about the current state

• Define what success looks like and how to measure

• Set deadlines

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Root Cause Analysis

• This may not be clear at first.

• Sometimes you have to try to solve the

problem, fail, and redefine what the problem

is again.

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QUALITY TOOLSONCE YOU KNOW WHAT

THE PROBLEM IS

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Problem: Can we reduce the amount

of movement for completing

analytical sample preparation?

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Spaghetti Diagram

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SOLUTION: MOVE

EQUIPMENT TO

BETTER REFLECT

PROCESS

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5 WHY’S

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styleJefferson Memorial

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styleWe need more ___________!

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style• Why don’t we have enough ATP swabs?

• We ran out yesterday

• Why did we run out yesterday?

• Because no one ordered more

• Why didn’t anymore order more?

• We didn’t know we were on the last box

• Why didn’t we know we were on the last box?

ATP swabs

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SOLUTION: KANBAN CARDS

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PROBLEM: DIFFERENT

OPERATORS ARE

GETTING DIFFERENT

ABV READINGS

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Value Stream Mapping

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style• Helps us judge importance

• Three factors

• Severity: a rating of the adverse impact of the defect – a

measure that reflects the negative consequence to the

users or developers

• Occurrence: how often the defect is encountered and/or

how long it takes to recover functionality – a measure that

reflects a different element of the impact of the defect •

• Detection: how easy it is to spot the defect is when it

occurs – a measure that reflects the risk of unmitigated

consequences if the defect is not remedied

• RPN = Severity x Occurrence x Detection

Risk Priority Number

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styleSOLUTION:

AMBIGUITIES IN

PROCESS RESULTED IN

PEOPLE DOING THINGS

DIFFERENTLY. WE

DEFINED A MORE

CONCRETE PROCEDURE.

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PROBLEM: Brewing thought sample

prep for ABV samples could be

improved using filtration rather than

centrifuging samples.

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styleASBC Stats-2

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SOLUTION: The variance between

the two methods was not significant.

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style• You need to measure to make sure things have actually improved.

• If you have implemented a new system, does the new system work?

Are people actually using it?

• When you finally solve the problem, show your work! Be proud!

Give a 5 minute talk to your company!

• Get buy in through data!

• This is empowering for the folks on the team

• Encourage others to lead sessions and begin identifying problems.

• Don’t stop there, there are always more problems to solve!

What do we do after the problem is “solved”?

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style• American Society of Quality asq.org

• 5 Why’s Jefferson Memorial

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEQvq99PZwo

• Adam Savage https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhAt-

7i36G8

• Manufacturing in your area

Resources

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style• Bell Family

• Lab Staff

• Production Teams

• Derek Stepanski and John Mallett

• MBAA

Acknowledgments

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QUESTIONS?

LTORRES@BELLSBEER.COM