51 Roles Redeployed, Without Losing a Unit of Output
A bakery operation rebalanced four departments and safely redeployed 51 roles while fully holding output.
219 → 168
People across four departments
Output fully held
51
Roles redeployed
4 rebalanced
Departments
Fully held
Output
Auto polybag stacker
Kaizen
The Situation
The plant was fully staffed but unevenly loaded. Some stations waited while others were overloaded.
Manning reflected peak moments and legacy habit rather than measured average workload.
Without line-level time visibility, headcount appeared fixed even where idle time was high.
What We Did
We measured work content before changing staffing, then balanced departments on observed load.
- Completed cycle-time and man-machine studies to locate idle time by department.
- Applied line balancing and work-relieving methods to align load with demand.
- Built a Kaizen-led automatic polybag stacker to remove a manual packing constraint.
The Results
Fifty-one roles were safely redeployed across mixing, cream sandwich, cream packing, and Parle-G packing while output stayed intact.
Staffing decisions now follow measured workload, reducing the chance of seasonal imbalance returning.
- 01
Line balance is usually cheaper and more durable than adding headcount.
- 02
Measure before hiring; many busy lines are uneven, not truly loaded.
Industrial Businesses Across 3 Continents