Capacity Increase: Batch Monomer Production

Increasing the capacity of a batch monomer production by 32% in 7 months

Industry

Chemicals – Intermediate chemical monomer

Project Length

7 months, two consultants leading multiple client teams

Objective

Increase monomer output by 32% at reactors bottleneck by reducing cycle time and downtime

Results

• Reactor downtime reduced from 25% to 10%
• Average reactor cycle time reduced by 12%
• The target of a 32% Monomer capacity increase was achieved, worth an additional contribution of €12.4 million annually. 

These improvements shifted the supply chain bottleneck downstream to the next production facility.

Why was Chartwell brought on board?

Increasing global demand for oil additives put pressure on a vertically integrated supply chain, exposing an urgent need to increase total production capacity.

One of the plant’s six reactors had recently been allocated to a separate product line, making the plant with the remaining five reactors the supply chain bottleneck:

Two Chartwell consultants were brought on board for seven months to increase the capacity of these five reactors with the production team to ensure a sufficient monomer supply for the final production step.

Project details

Production process:

The process consisted of three stages with a highly automated reaction step, followed by more manual hydrolysis and filtration processes. Inbound and outbound logistics, as well as raw material and product storage, were also within the scope of the project.

Key lever to identify opportunities:

Creating and implementing a new batch visualisation system for each reactor quickly allowed opportunities to be identified and prioritised:

Batch cycle times for each product were compared with new target times based on best-observed times in each sub step. This process uncovered the largest areas for improvement within and between batches for the team to work on.

Reactor downtime was closely monitored and reduced through improvements to logistics processes and resolving downstream capacity problems.

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