Operational Excellence and Organizational Change Management Transformation
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Intro:
An established sugar refinery in the southeastern United States, with a long history of operations, created both strengths and challenges as leadership pursued a new standard of operational excellence. The site includes raw sugar storage, refining capacity, and multiple packaging lines that serve a wide mix of customers across different channels. With hundreds of employees and a long operating history, the refinery is a key producer in its region and a critical link in the sugar supply chain.
Background:
The refinery, built in the 1910s, passed through several owners over the decades. While the physical footprint and core processes remained largely intact, years of deferred maintenance and reliance on legacy practices, such as reactive work and tribal knowledge, left many assets in poor condition. By 2023, the site operated across 150 acres, featuring a deep-water sugar dock, raw sugar warehouses, a refinery with roughly 3,000 tons per day of melt capacity, and thirteen packaging lines, staffed by approximately 487 employees.
covering sustainability, optimization, processes, culture, and management principles. The site received an overall score of 389 on its evaluation, placing it firmly in the reactive range. The evaluation highlighted that many machines and processes were outdated, contributing to the frequent disruptions and preventing the plant from operating near its design capacity. This reinforced that the organization relied heavily on firefighting and short-term fixes rather than standardized processes and preventive practices.
Issues:
The refinery wanted to:
- Move from a reactive, breakdown driven culture to a proactive, planned approach to maintenance and operations
- Standardize work management processes, including planning, scheduling, and prioritization of work orders
- Improve materials management by controlling inventory, eliminating hidden stashes, and making sure parts were issued against valid work
- Strengthen reliability engineering practices, including criticality assessment, loss elimination, and use of tools such as FMEA and root cause analysis
- Address natural resistance to change that arose as new expectations, measures, and processes were introduced
- Build leadership capability to sponsor and sustain the transformation
Leaders knew that simply issuing new procedures would not be enough. They needed an organizational change management framework that supported the transition from a reactive culture to a proactive one.
Solution:
LCE worked with the whole operation (refinery and packaging plants) to design and implement an Operational Excellence roadmap supported by formal organizational change management practices. The approach followed Prosci® guidance by aligning leadership support, project management, and organizational change management activities. A shared vision statement and guiding principles were developed to address awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, and reinforcement (ADKAR®).
To drive adoption, the site created cross-functional focus teams for work management, materials management, reliability engineering, and loss elimination. Each team included a site leader, employees from multiple departments, and an LCE subject matter expert serving as a coach. Together, they developed 35 work processes with detailed step definitions and a RACI, identifying who is Responsible, Authorizes/Approves, Supports, and is Informed, along with creating training materials and an implementation plan. All content was then loaded into the LCEsmartr Playbook, a cloud-based platform that organizes processes, training, and resources to support onboarding and ongoing development.
The teams implemented best practices tailored to the operation. In work management they introduced a new weekly scheduling format, used a prioritization index for work orders, automated the weekly schedule, and established automated KPIs. These changes increased labor utilization by about 40 percent, doubled weekly work order creation from roughly 200 to more than 400, and improved schedule effectiveness. The site developed a mechanical integrity program, implemented vibration analysis, and created 262 new preventive maintenance tasks that covered more than 1,300 pieces of equipment. Materials management improvements included staffing the storeroom around the clock and introducing a policy that required a work order before parts could be issued. Teams also completed full verification of key components such as motors, gearboxes, pumps, sprockets, and valves; added motor rotation preventive tasks; and developed MRO parts kitting and delivery, which together contributed to a more efficient workforce..
To bring the solution full circle, two years into the effort the plants conducted a self-assessment using the LCEsmartr Playbook. Seventy-two employees from operations, maintenance, reliability, projects, and leadership participated in the review. The site’s score improved to 543, which placed it on the edge of the proactive range and demonstrated significant progress toward the 2026 goal. ADKAR assessments also showed stronger awareness, desire, knowledge, and ability, with fewer barriers to change than in early 2024.
Impact:
The combination of Operational Excellence practices and structured organizational change management delivered measurable improvements for the sugar refinery and packaging plant. Key results included:
- Labor utilization increased by about 40 percent as weekly scheduling and prioritization became more disciplined.
- Weekly work order creation increased from approximately 200 to more than 400, with greater emphasis on preventive maintenance.
- Asset care was strengthened through 262 new preventive maintenance tasks covering more than 1,300 pieces of equipment, along with a mechanical integrity program and vibration analysis.
- Storeroom performance improved with 24-hour staffing, a kitting program that produces about 300 kits per month, delivery of kits to the field, and cycle count accuracy rising from 95.3 percent to more than 98 percent.
- Hidden inventory was removed, and parts issuance was tied to valid work orders, improving cost control and traceability.
- The site’s Operational Excellence score increased from 389 to 543, moving the refinery from the reactive range to the threshold of proactive performance.
- Substantial gains in production levels and OEE.
- Financial value measures in tens of millions of dollars and continues.
Beyond these metrics, the refinery built a stronger culture of engagement. Employees from across the site participated in process design, assessments, and improvement efforts, all which helped reduce resistance to the new way of working. Over time, the culture shifted from reactive firefighting to proactive ownership and accountability.
Quick Summary:
Quick Summary:
This major sugar refinery partnered with Life Cycle Engineering to transform its operations and maintenance performance by:
- Increasing labor utilization by about 40 percent and doubling weekly work order creation
- Strengthening asset care with more than 260 new preventive maintenance tasks covering over 1,300 assets
- Improving storeroom performance with 24-hour staffing, kitting, delivery services, and higher cycle count accuracy
- Eliminating hidden inventory and tying part issuance to work orders for better control and traceability
- Raising its Operational Excellence score from 389 to 543 in two years
Unlock your organization’s potential with proven Operational Excellence and change management support from Life Cycle Engineering. For more information, email info@LCE.com or visit LCE.com.
