Ornua is first ever recipient of new Leading Edge efficiency award
Staff at Ornua's Kerrygold Park production plant in Mitchelstown, Co Cork, played a key role in the company becoming the first recipient of Leading Edge's new International Continuous Improvement Excellence Award, writes Joe Dermody.
The award recognises the €2.4m in efficiency savings achieved in 2016 by Ornua’s operational excellence team. The savings were made across Ornua's six European processing facilities.
Ornua has begun rolling out the programme to a further four sites during 2017, and it plans to have all operational sites embedded within the programme by 2018, including China, Africa, Saudi Arabia, the USA and Europe.
The operational excellence team deployed the company's new ‘The Ornua Way’ programme to deliver sustainable improvements across the six facilities. Leading Edge Group CEO, Joe Aherne, presented the award to Ornua COO, Anthony Proctor, at a ceremony in Kerrygold Park in Mitchelstown, Co Cork.
Anthony Proctor, Ornua COO said: “We are delighted to receive the award from Leading Edge Group. Improving operational efficiency is key to achieving our ambition to deliver a sustainable EBITA margin of 3% by 2021 and ensuring strong returns for our members.”
Kerrygold Park is Ornua's €38m state-of-the-art butter production and packaging plant, with a production capacity of 50,000 tonnes. The plant enables Ornua to deliver new product formats to its consumers around the world.
The 'Ornua Way' activities include increasing productivity gains, increasing production yields, optimisation of production planning, reduced production waste and improved material flows.
Agriculture Minister, Michael Creed, said: “I commend the Ornua operational excellence team for their commitment and dedication to ensuring that all Ornua processing facilities, around the world, operate to the best standard possible.
Irish dairy enterprises operate in highly competitive markets. It is crucial that we implement best practice in operations, which reduce costs while promoting sustainability. Ornua has a well-earned reputation for innovation, not just in product development but in terms of both leading the industry and how it does business.”
