Intersnack, a European snack manufacturer best known in the United Kingdom for itsPom-Bear, PennState Pretzel andMr Mashbrands, has significantly improved the operational efficiency of two of its factories in the Netherlands following the installation of CDC Factory.


Intersnack, a European snack manufacturer best known in the United Kingdom for itsPom-Bear, PennState Pretzel andMr Mashbrands, has significantly improved the operational efficiency of two of its factories in the Netherlands following a review of factory processes. The cost saving and productivity gains were so significant that Intersnack is now going to install the same factory management solution, CDC Factory, into 10 more factories across Europe.

After a review of operational processes, Intersnack appointed CDC Software to provide a real-time view of productivity, quality, scheduling and maintenance from which to make accurate business critical decisions.

CDC Factory is a packaged manufacturing operations management system that transforms manufacturing performance by empowering people to make real-time actionable decisions. It combines shop floor data capture, paperless quality management, packaged metrics like OEE, manufacturing analytics and executive scorecards. Pre-built continuous improvement capabilities combined with an implementation model focused on business transformation means that, in many cases, organizations can be live within six weeks and deliver improvement results rapidly from project commencement.

The multi-plant implementation of CDC Factory is part of Intersnack’s ongoing plan for operational excellence. The initial installations at the Doetinchem and Hardinxveld plants in the Netherlands took only six weeks each without impacting the day-to-day business or production. In addition, both installations were delivered on time and within budget. 

According to Intersnack, CDC Factory has already delivered significant overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) rates and the two plants have been able to eliminate all paperwork associated with in-line quality control processes, which has dramatically reduced administration costs and waste on the shop floor.

During the next 12 months, CDC Factory is expected to be installed in Intersnack’s remaining Dutch plants as well as production facilities in Germany, Hungary and France. As part of these implementations, CDC Software also will use the CDC Factory Project Execution Template (PET) model to help ensure consistency and scalability of best practices and continuous improvement initiatives across the plants’ diverse product portfolio and workplace cultures. 

“We are delighted that the initial implementations of CDC Factory were delivered as CDC Software promised in terms of workplace behavior change and improved operational and financial metrics,” says Johan Van Winkel, managing director of Intersnack Group. “We have witnessed significant OEE improvement and the workforce has embraced ownership of their own performance. The successful performance of these initial implementations has encouraged us to replicate this across our plant network as soon as possible so that we have a standard OEE platform on which to base our decisions for our ongoing Operational Excellence programs.”

"As a true out-of-the-box manufacturing operations management system, CDC Factory has proven repeatedly that it can deliver improved results in weeks rather than years,” says Mark Sutcliffe, president of the CDC Factory product line. Intersnack now has a proven suite of workforce manufacturing intelligence tools that can be rolled out to other plants following a standardized set-up. As we have seen with our other customers, CDC Factory can deliver compelling improvements for manufacturers in terms of higher productivity, reduced operating costs and waste, and ultimately, higher operating profits.”