Company profile
1.

Company, Plant/Factory Profile

1.1 Group profile
SIG is a leading packaging solutions provider for a more sustainable world
headquartered in Neuhausen, Switzerland. Has over 170 years of industrial experience,over 115 years in food and beverage packaging and more than 45 years in aseptic filling.
We had more than 8400 employees’ partner with more than 220 leading food andbeverage producers in more than 100 countries. SIG produces over 48 billion packs ayear, filling 10,000+ products in over 50 categories. Picture below is standardized SIG
logo for all plants in SIG.

After the M& A for Evergreen and Scholle IPN in 2022, SIG now become a one-stop
packaging partner, offers packaging, filling machines and processing for dairy,
beverages, that provide sustainable product and package solutions to now meets the needsof millions of people around the world –from breakfast tables and boardrooms to coffee
shops and canteens.

1.2 Plant profile
There are 2 aseptic packaging plants at Suzhou. PSU is short for “plant Suzhou 1”.
Located at No. 399, Xinglong Street, Suzhou Industrial Park. The plant covers an area of60,000 square meters. PSU started its operation in 2004, with around 12 Bio yearly
capacity, the sleeves produced by PSU are supplied to 56 domestic customer factories
and 16 foreign countries and regions. Most of our customer comes from domesticcustomer.
1.2.1 Products
Basically, PSU provide Carton packaging/sleeves, Package portfolio is as below, totally 8families& 33 types:

FormatVolume (ML)CB1125, 150, 200, 250

CB7125, 150, 200, 250, 300, 330, 350

CF7200, 350

CB3500, 750, 1000

CB5250, 500, 1000

CB12125, 180, 200

CI18180, 200, 250, 300, 330, 350

OX

180, 200, 250, 300, 330

Example1.2.2 Process technology
There are 4 step processing for sleeve, extrusion, printing, crease cutting and folder
sealing. Sleeve produciton process can be found from picture below

1.2.3 Management organization and staff structure
There are around 450 employees in plant Suzhou. HR and Finance are centralizeddepartment.

2.

Milestone on the Journey of Manufacturing Excellence

As process industrial production, we focus on loss reduction and waste elimination.
The vision of SIG Plant Suzhou is, to be the smartest manufacturing plant with TPM/SES
methodology and mindset. SES is short for SIG Excellence System, which is the TPM
methodology for SIG.
In VUCA time, we had challenges from external:
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More and more local competitor with lower price merging
Some orders transferred to sister plant due to COVID-19
Our customer lot size is reducing, and more tailed-made product.
Product portfolio is changing, radio of low-speed, high-waste, difficult-to-process
products is increasing.
Our customer orders are quite uneven and deeply affected by seasonality,
especially in Dec.

Internally we had challenges as below:
Machine worked for over 20 years, feasibility and machine performance are toppriority.

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PSU split into 2 sites in 2019, orders start transferring to plant Suzhou2 in 2021
High changeovers result from volume and customer lot size decrease.
People capability development due to plant split.
Product structure is simple due to process constrain.

With the vision and challenge, SIG Plant Suzhou started pillars implementation with
TPM/SES tools and methodologies to improve performance in 2020. Overall SES (TPM)
history is as below.
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3.

2012: Operation Excellence (OPEX) department established.
2013: Evolved OPEX to TPM System.
2014: Evolved TPM to Continuous Improvement System.
2019: Finalized SIG Excellence System and start yearly SES MA by global team.
2020: All pillars were in place and started implementation with TPM/SES tools
and methodologies.
2022: Finished AM step 4 pilot line on time and started JIPM Category B
certification application.

Benefits AchievedSince the launch of TPM(SES) management system in 2020, performance continued toimprove. Compared with 2019, KPIs have been greatly improved, below are sometangible results in terms of SQDCP.
Near Miss or observation finding increased, which also help reduce safety injured or FirstAid cases case. Chart below is details.

Complaints of recurrence reduced year by year even with higher and higher customer
requirement, and waste rate this year is the lowest globally.

We sustained on time to request delivery performance year over year.

Our Volume got 17% decrease, lot size 55% decreased. But thanks to TPM, ourconversion cost got 3.1% increase but still the lowest YTD conversion cost globally.
Picture below we had adjusted the tariff to same level for better comparison.

Fluctuation rate continues to decrease since the start of 2020. Now had around 50%
reduction.

We also got some intangible result, for example, we have more employees participatedinto our idea management system. And AM& PM Experts growing up, and skills
cumulated during the TPM implementation. The methodology application for example 7
steps of problem solving& 12 steps improvement. It has realized the improvement ofemployees ‘skills and the improvement of employees’ working environment.

4.

Key of our Manufacturing ExcellenceStarting from the very beginning of or TPM/SES journey, we learned a lot. not only frommethodology view, but also some of the team and project management, as well as
mindset growing up. some key items
1. TPM/SES steering committee for better pillars and department communicationand corporation, as well as management involvement
2. All employee, especially the shopfloor employee involvement in TPM/SES
activities
3. Zero loss and waste mindset
4. Visual management and Standardization
5. Continuous improvement in daily work

5.

TPM Award assessment achievement sheet

Achievement sheet can be found from pictures below. We had improvement on machine
performance and our quality, as well as the people development.