Today’s modern processing plants can benefit from a growing set of tools designed to expose inefficiencies and drive action.
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In today’s unpredictable economic environment, food and beverage manufacturers face increasing pressure to deliver more with less. We need more product, more output, more reliability, but with less budget, less labor, and less room for error. This demand isn’t new, but it has taken on greater urgency as supply chain disruptions, inflationary pressure, and labor shortages stretch operations thin. With capital projects harder to justify and new equipment lead times growing longer, many processors are asking a critical question: Are we truly maximizing the lines we already have?
That question lies at the heart of smarter line utilization. It’s a concept that challenges manufacturers to increase throughput, reduce downtime, and eliminate inefficiencies without adding equipment or headcount. It requires us to think differently about the assets on the floor—not as fixed-capacity machines, but as flexible, optimizable systems capable of more than they’re currently delivering.
The untapped capacity in every line
In most processing facilities, there’s a gap between what the line is doing and what it could be doing. That gap may be caused by inefficiencies in changeovers, unplanned micro-stoppages, inconsistent material flow, operator variability, or lack of real-time visibility. But that gap represents opportunity, and in many cases, a significant one.
In a large milk processing plant, managers discovered that frequent, extended changeovers were quietly eating away at daily production volume. Though each changeover seemed efficient in isolation, the cumulative time lost added up to hours of idle equipment each week.
Dr. Bryan Griffen is the President of Griffen Executive Solutions LLC. He was previously Senior Director of Industry Services for PMMI: The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies, and he held a number of roles for Nestlé during his many years there.By engaging the line team and applying lean tools, they began measuring actual changeover durations, identifying sources of variability, and standardizing best practices. Visual tools such as center-lining (which indicates optimal settings directly on the equipment) and laminated changeover guides were developed to assist operators in quickly restoring settings after cleaning or format changes.
Additionally, targeted One Point Lessons (OPLs) were created—not for the full changeover process, but to address particularly tricky or error-prone tasks like aligning a filler valve or resetting a digital controller that often led to extended troubleshooting. These bite-sized, visual SOPs were displayed near the relevant equipment and helped reduce learning curves for newer team members while reinforcing precision for seasoned operators.
The result was a significant reduction in average changeover time and a measurable increase in cases produced per shift, without any capital investment or added labor.
This story illustrates a central truth in smarter utilization: The key isn’t always automation or high-tech upgrades. Sometimes it’s about empowering the people already on the floor, connecting them with clearer processes, better data, and visual tools that help them make the right decisions faster.
Enabling visibility with practical technology
That said, there’s also no denying the role of technology in unlocking hidden capacity. Today’s modern processing plants can benefit from a growing set of tools designed to expose inefficiencies and drive action.
Visibility is the catalyst for improvement. When frontline teams can see how their line is performing in real-time, they can take immediate action and feel more connected to the outcome. In recent years, digital tools like Redzone, LineView, and FactoryIQ have grown in popularity for tracking productivity and displaying performance dashboards at the line level.
Beyond these, many facilities are finding renewed value in simple, effective tools like Andon displays. These real-time visual boards show metrics such as cases per minute, current output, downtime occurrences, and performance against the shift record. When used correctly, they foster a healthy, competitive spirit among crews and create a shared sense of purpose. Operators begin asking, “Are we on pace to break the record?” and supervisors can coach in the moment when performance slips.
By integrating visibility into daily operations—not as a policing tool, but as a team motivator—plants are seeing more proactive ownership and faster responses to performance dips.
What’s important is that these tools are most effective when paired with a culture that’s ready to use the data. In high-performing plants, we often see frontline teams reviewing performance dashboards during shift huddles and using real-time alerts to identify and resolve problems on the spot. In one facility, teams use live dashboards during shift meetings to pinpoint which steps in the prior shift’s changeover created bottlenecks and adjust their plans accordingly. The combination of visibility and empowerment is where the real power lies.
To be clear, none of these platforms are silver bullets, they’re enablers—part of a broader strategy to make line utilization more transparent, more responsive, and more team-driven. They also don’t require massive capital investment. Many platforms are subscription-based or can be piloted on a single line, making them accessible even in tight budget cycles.
Thinking like a linker
As I’ve worked with manufacturers of all sizes over the years, I’ve come to believe that one of the most valuable roles in a plant is what I call the “linker.” This is the person—often a team leader, engineer, or tech-savvy operator—who sees the whole system and knows how to connect people, processes, and tools to drive improvement.
Smarter line utilization thrives when these linkers are empowered. They spot patterns in downtime data and bring the right teams together to solve them. They help bridge the gap between what the machine can do and what it is doing. They translate real-world operator feedback into improvement projects that actually stick. And they do it by helping the organization move as a cohesive system, not just a set of machines.
If your plant is serious about increasing output without expanding headcount or footprint, find your linkers and support them. Give them access to real-time data. Give them time to work on improvements. Give them visibility with leadership. The ROI will follow.
Small wins, big gains
It’s tempting to think that meaningful capacity increases require major investments. But smarter line utilization is built on the opposite idea: that many small changes, applied consistently, add up to big results.
That might mean tightening changeovers by 10%, eliminating the extra 30 seconds it takes for materials to reach a staging point, or improving startup procedures so the first 20 minutes of every shift are actually productive. In aggregate, these micro-improvements can be the difference between meeting a production goal or falling short, especially when demand spikes or downtime events push your system to the limit.
One processor shared with me that after implementing a visibility platform and retraining operators on daily performance goals, they were able to produce an additional day’s worth of product each month—without changing the equipment, layout, or staffing. It wasn’t flashy. It was just good operational discipline, grounded in data and executed consistently.
Final thoughts
As we continue our “Doing More with Less” series, smarter line utilization stands as one of the most impactful levers available to food manufacturers. In a world of constrained capital and uncertain demand, getting more out of what you already have isn’t just a cost-saving measure, it’s a competitive advantage.
The tools are within reach. The knowledge is already inside your operation. The key is bringing it together by empowering your people, standardizing your processes, and using data to make better decisions faster.
And while the industry continues to evolve, one thing remains clear: The path to resilience isn’t always about building new lines. Sometimes, it’s about finally unleashing the potential of the ones we’ve had all along.
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Dr. Bryan Griffen is the President of Griffen Executive Solutions LLC. He was previously Senior Director of Industry Services for PMMI: The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies, and he held a number of roles for Nestlé during his many years there.
