SCHEID VINEYARDS (SVI)
Winery in Monterey County with 13 distinct vineyards, providing grapes for winery clients in California
$30 Thousand
of Time Saved
from Mobile Harvest
Tracking System
To improve wine harvest operations, Manex created a process map to identify specific, realistic improvements, comparing them to the current map to calculate gained efficiencies.
Client Business Need
During the 2011 harvest season, SVI provided access to their facilities, personnel, and operations in order for Manex to understand the harvest aspect of vineyard operations. In exchange, Manex provided consulting services to SVI in order to help them improve harvest operations.
Approach
Manex led a process with the following steps:
- Define the problem and specific goals
- Understand the problem
- Measure the ‘Current State’
- ‘Go-See’ and observe the process in action
- Root Cause analysis
- Define improvements / Eliminate root causes
- Project the Future State and quantify cost savings
Manex assisted SVI in achieving two primary goals in this project:
- Calculate efficiencies gained through deployment of a new mobile harvest inventory system
- Define further opportunities to increase efficiencies, enhance communication, and drive costs down throughout the harvest operation
Manex detailed the SVI Harvest Process on a ‘Process Map’. The resulting map formed the blueprint for defining opportunities for streamlining, and measuring the relative cost savings associated with the new streamlined process. The process mapping exercise included interviews with personnel, where process steps were posted on a whiteboard to promote visualization and refinement of the current state processes.
Manex consultants also shadowed harvest operations, for both the night machine pick and day hand pick operations. The results of these activities were mapped out in process mapping software, and associated with man hours and cycle times for each process. Manex consultants identified specific, realistic improvements, which were then mapped and compared to the current state map in order to calculate gained efficiencies.
Results Delivered
The streamlined process and new mobile harvest inventory tracking system will allow SVI to operate more efficiently which will result in significant cost savings.
Specific results include:
- Approximately $30,000 of time saved per harvest season with implementation of new mobile harvest inventory tracking system
- Approximately $400,000 of time saved per harvest season with additional opportunities for improvement identified in the project