A leading industrial coatings manufacturer faced growing demand for a high-specification green-brand powder paint used in industrial and farm equipment. The product was completely sold out, meaning every incremental increase in capacity would translate directly to additional revenue.

However, operations teams believed the facilities were at maximum capacity, even though the design throughput of the extrusion system suggested otherwise. The client had already begun planning a multimillion-dollar capital expansion to add new powder paint lines but wanted to verify whether existing assets were truly constrained.

Caravel Solutions was engaged to conduct a comprehensive analysis to determine the plant’s true production entitlement, identifying the real performance potential of current assets. The team was tasked with assessing cycle times, uptime, reliability practices, and process stability to uncover hidden capacity and provide data-backed recommendations for improvement. At the time, the plant’s on-stream factor was operating at only 50-60% of design capacity.

Caravel applied a Six Sigma-based statistical approach, including Operations Stability and Weibull analyses, to identify sources of variability and quantify hidden production potential. The data revealed that significant capacity remained untapped within the existing system.

Key findings and actions included:

• Cycle time variability and unstable operations were major contributors to lost production.

• Larger extrusion lines consistently demonstrated performance 15% above entitlement, proving that higher throughput was achievable.

• A detailed process simulation was developed to identify true bottlenecks and pinch points across the production system. Contrary to expectations, the extruders were not the primary bottleneck, limitations were instead traced to feed preparation and upstream material handling.

• Supply chain coordination and production planning practices were evaluated to reduce changeover times and improve overall uptime.

This integrated analysis provided a clear, data-driven roadmap to unlock existing capacity and optimize workflow, without requiring additional capital investment.

Caravel’s analysis uncovered that feed preparation, not extrusion, was the dominant constraint on throughput. By reorganizing feed preparation activities, improving changeover sequencing, and addressing maintenance and reliability gaps, the plant achieved a dramatic performance improvement:

• 28.4% increase in total production throughput

• Additional 5% improvement from reduced changeovers and improved uptime

• Multimillion-dollar CAPEX expansion project cancelled, as existing assets could now meet market demand

The optimization delivered a total impact of $11 million per year, not including the avoided capital expenditure.

Caravel Solutions’ data-driven operational excellence methodology transformed perceived capacity limits into measurable performance gains, enabling the client to achieve higher output, lower cost, and faster ROI without new capital investment.