Smithfield Foods Case Study

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Smithfield Foods is a forward-thinking company that likes to be the industry leader. The main way to for them to achieve and maintain this goal is to utilize both the Six Sigma and lean philosophies. Merging lean with Six Sigma provides the company “a richer set of tools, particularly those associated with the define, measure and analyze phases. Likewise, the lean tools nicely complement the traditional Six Sigma tools and methodologies” (Meredith, p. 198). Smithfield needs the help of employees to keep these process improvements in motion and to make sure the improvements that have been implemented are actually effective. Thus, always working towards their goal of producing “Good food, responsibly.” To remain the industry leader, Smithfield …show more content…

The project was a small-scale project in scope, but very crucial for to the accounting department, who was dealing with all of the outstanding deductions month after month. The year benchmark was given because that was when the fiscal year would close, and management did not want those deductions rolling into a new year. With a company as large as Smithfield, projects play a major role in their growth and development. Yet, sometimes projects are implemented to help the company achieve their mission statement and to help the community and environment as a whole. These projects also align with Smithfield’s sustainability program, which a part of that program focuses on animal …show more content…

Again, Smithfield is now a conglomerate of three IOC’s that at one time each had their own fresh and packaged facilities along with distribution centers and cold storages. Each of the IOC’s were based in different parts of the United States, which is where their customers were also located. After the first merger of Smithfield Packing, based out of the East, and Farmland based out of the Midwest, the decision was made to close the Smithfield plant located in Portsmouth, VA. Along with closing this plant, they invested $85 billion to expand their Kinston plant in Kinston, NC. Kinston took over the manufacturing of their packaged products that were being made in Portsmouth. Instead of having two facilities making hot dogs and lunch meats, they now had it all being produced in one location. Another move that Smithfield made was to close their distribution center (DC) in Newport News, VA, that was originally a Smithfield Packing facility, and utilize the one that was originally Farmland’s in East Dubuque,

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