Barcoding reduces Monthly Cycle Count time by 75% for Crown Cork and Seal Food Division

Background
Crown Holdings, Inc. is a multi-billion dollar supplier of packaging products to consumer marketing companies around the world.  In 2002, Crown Cork & Seal first piloted eMaint’s X3 Online CMMS at two of its U.S. beverage division plant locations, expanding to all 10 division plants.  Crown’s U.S. food division followed suit and implemented X3 across its 13 U.S. plants in 2003 and then its Canadian plants in 2007.  Today, Crown relies on eMaint X3 for inventory control and PM management across 54 of its plant locations in 7 countries.  

Over the years Crown has taken advantage of expanded features within eMaint X3 and in 2008 implemented the MX mobile system along with barcode technology in storerooms across several U.S. food and beverage division plants.  

Challenge
In response to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, Crown Cork & Seal implemented eMaint X3 in 2002 for better inventory tracking.  A corporate policy requires Crown to count all inventory twice a year. To accomplish this, each plant performs monthly cycle counts on a portion of their inventory. Initially, the cycle counting process was time consuming and required reallocation of manpower to complete on time.  Seeking to improve cycle count efficiency, Crown chose to utilize barcoding technology in conjunction with eMaint’s MX Mobile system to reduce the time required to complete monthly cycle counts and to improve inventory accuracy.

Implementation
Although the initial goal for implementing eMaint X3 revolved around inventory tracking, Crown continuously strives to leverage the system to improve other aspects of their operation. In 2005, Crown started utilizing eMaint for scheduling preventive maintenance of assets (meter-based and calendar-based), followed by setting up automated reminders of upcoming Environmental Health and Safety inspections. In 2008, Crown implemented MX mobile and barcoding devices in in their storerooms for issuing parts and performing monthly cycle counts.  As hundreds of parts are counted at each location each month, the time-saving opportunity was significant.

Results
After implementing barcoding devices and MX Mobile for recording cycle counts, Crown Cork & Seal was able to reduce the time needed for completing the monthly counts by 75% (from a month to a week). Crown continues to drive down inventory costs and has even moved to unattended storerooms in selected locations.  

Crown has started to utilize the eMaint CMMS system for tracking breakdown and corrective work orders. This will enable them to track costs by type of maintenance at a plant, division, and corporate level.

Benefits
-Cycle counts time reduced by 75%
-Automatic notifications of Environmental Health and Safety Inspections
-Inventory reduction due to centralized part accessibility
-Elevated from preventive to predictive maintenance
- Adherence to standard operating procedures across all plant locations