Case Study: Huhtamaki achieves $200K+ material-cost savings with Northwest Analytics' NWA Quality plant-floor SPC

Huhtamaki Uses Integrated Plant Floor SPC to Save Material Costs Making Plastic Tableware

Huhtamaki Americas’ Coleman, MI thermoforming facility needed to reduce material costs, scrap and product overages while simplifying SPC data collection and process monitoring for disposable plastic tableware. Northwest Analytics’ NWA Quality software (including Quality Monitor and Quality Analyst) was the corporate SPC standard used to establish control limits and support continuous process improvement.

Northwest Analytics implemented plant-floor SPC profiles by configuring NWA Quality Monitor and Quality Analyst, integrating an Ohaus scale via RS232 to automate weight capture at operator kiosks, and deploying Quality Monitor Supervisor for floor-wide oversight. The solution replaced multiple-dimension inspections with single-weight monitoring, shifted data entry to operators, tightened weight variation and lowered overhead—producing measurable results of over $200,000 in cumulative material cost savings since the program began while reducing scrap and overages.

Huhtamaki