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As a manufacturer experiencing exciting, new growth, it’s understandable to be operating at hyper speed every single day. But while trying to achieve fast cycle times and quick turnarounds to meet customer and industry demands, it becomes even more important to focus on quality — at least that's the Monument Chemical mentality! So during a challenging external environment, we pride ourselves not only on hitting our customer deadlines, but also on bringing them greater value throughout the entire process.

So when the company’s Pilot Plant noticed some inefficiencies in the process, they asked themselves without hesitation: how can we do better?

Monument Brandenburg’s Pilot Plant in Brandenburg, KY is a hub for testing and learning, working with small volumes of products for the purpose of advancing the processes, commercializing new products, and scaling those products to meet customer needs.

“In a system dedicated to education for the benefit of our customers, it only seemed right to take immediate action when we noticed some bumps in the process,” Wendell Borges, Brandenburg Site Leader, explained. “We’ve always been a partner that customers know will deliver for them regardless of the challenging economic conditions, and we can only do that if we maintain the highest standards.”

To take the Pilot Plant to the next level, there were several improvement paths the team could have taken; all with uncertain outcomes. In the end, they knew that the option chosen would also be the most difficult — but it was the right one to make: temporarily shutting the Pilot Plant down.

The plan was to do an intensive deep dive into all operations, reviewing data of all substances and equipment, investigating all actions taken on site, and conducting an exhaustive review of risk analysis, training, and procedures. While they knew ceasing operations until they had a clear plan and timeline for the targeted improvements would be very challenging — the Brandenburg team was up for it.

“We have customers that rely on our ability to meet supply demands and deliver no matter what the external circumstances, so you better believe we’re going to ensure everything is done the right way,” Brad Carby, Pilot Plant Supervisor, explained. “When you’re moving forward at such a fast pace, it’s important that you take a step back every once in a while and ask yourself how you can improve. The path to get there wasn’t easy for our team, but we were determined to do whatever it took to address any issues that prevented us from being at 100% and take our standard of safety and quality to another level.”

A multi-month plan was shared with current clients and put in place to resume first with simpler, less risky materials, then increase the complexity until reaching the most critical one. A dedicated team implemented over 100 action items — from installing new equipment to redesigning our SOPs and training procedures, and more.

“Taking this step back really enabled us to gain an invaluable understanding of our process,” Wendell added. “We learned a lot about our chemistry and equipment, which allowed us to create the right conditions for continuous improvements and a high performance team.”

In less than a month, the plant was already producing the first material, followed by the others, finalizing the cycle in ca. 5 months. From that moment on, the good results led to heightened motivation that fueled even more success. A second cycle of campaigns and the installation of a new vacuum equipment proceeded, cutting production times in half, achieving 0 process safety events or accidents, and elevating the processes and partnerships to a level unlike anything in the past.

With the new remarkably low cycle times, the Pilot Plant broke its historical record of material produced 3 times in the last 4 months!

“After installing the new pump and utilizing both reactors, we are now in a better position to service our clients and can incorporate all of our lessons learned to a new plant that is being built in our facility,” Deb Schofner, Director, Custom Manufacturing, shared. “Our customers are more confident than ever that they can rely on our understanding of how to make their product in accordance with our equipment and get all the product they need in a faster, more cost-effective way.”

“Throughout this process, we were able to raise some important questions that were valuable to our clients as well,” Eathan Peach, Production Superintendent, added. “We were able to help one of our clients utilize our learnings in analyzing their internal processes to identify what areas they needed to improve on their end, which made both sides of our partnership stronger.” 

With additional improvements already in the works, the team expects to continue setting high standards with new plant records to follow along with it! Monument will always be committed to fostering a culture of continuous improvement, and that means always challenging themselves to be the very best for their customers — no matter what it takes.