Sealed Air: £100k annual savings through Lean Six Sigma

Sealed Air commissioned Symbol to train employees as Orange and Green Belts. Four concrete improvement projects were also launched at the Enschede site.

The Mixing project alone delivers €100,000 in savings per year and was internationally nominated for Sealed Air’s Key to Success programme. The site now serves as a pilot for a European roll-out of Lean Six Sigma.

Challenge

Reducing waste in production processes and building an improvement culture

Approach

Employees trained as Orange and Green Belts, plus four improvement projects launched

Result

€100,000 annual savings on Mixing, plus international nomination

About Sealed Air

Sealed Air is a global producer of packaging and hygiene solutions, well-known for products such as Bubble Wrap. The Enschede site, formerly Diversey, produces cleaning agents for the food and healthcare sectors. With more than 1,500 SKUs in 450 different formulations, the production environment is complex and requires continuous efficiency improvement. The Enschede site serves as a pilot for a broader European roll-out of Lean Six Sigma within Sealed Air.

The challenge

Production in Enschede was inefficient on several fronts. Structural waste occurred during mixing and filling: rinsing losses, overfill in bottles, and variation between operators. Employees worked in different ways without a shared standard. Furthermore, planning was complex and transport did not align well with actual production.

The organisation had the will to improve but lacked the methodology, the structured approach, and a local partner who could provide coaching in their own language and time zone.

Our approach

Symbol provided the training and coaching for the Green and Orange Belts in Enschede. The approach was practice-oriented: employees worked on real projects from their own production environment.

What has been done in concrete terms:

Employees trained as Green Belts and Orange Belts
Improvement projects launched focused on waste reduction and flow improvement
New cleaning method developed with €100,000 annual savings
Filling project: savings of up to €20,000 per line
Start-up and run-out losses standardised
Planning and flow project started via Value Stream Mapping

“The idea of improving processes is spreading like wildfire through the organisation. More and more employees want to follow the training themselves.”

Results

Metric	Before	After	Improvement
Mixing project savings	High rinsing loss	Reduced rinsing loss	Savings €100,000 p.a.
Filling project savings per line	Structural overfill	5 lines improved	€4,000 to €20,000 per line
Waste disposal costs	€320,000 per year	Reduction under investigation	−10% lower costs
Lean ambassadors in organisation	None present	10+ applications for training	Wildfire effect

€100,000 annual savings on the Mixing project, internationally nominated within Sealed Air
The Enschede site serves as a pilot for a European roll-out of Lean Six Sigma. The concept of continuous improvement is spreading like wildfire through the organisation.

Lessons learned

Do not start too many projects at once. Sealed Air began with eight projects but had to scale back to four because the organisation was otherwise too heavily burdened. The lesson: choose fewer projects and do them well, rather than many projects that are left half-finished.

The second insight: coaching is essential alongside training. Theory alone is not enough. The coaching by Symbol consultants gave employees a different perspective and prevented knowledge from fading under production pressure. That is the approach that creates the wildfire effect.

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Do you recognise this in your organisation?

Waste in production processes that is measurable but difficult to tackle. An improvement process that does not get off the ground without the right guidance.

Symbol guides you from the first training session to concrete savings in production. Contact us for a non-binding consultation.

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