A study of reduction of production stops in a packaging industry in the city of Maringá – PR

Businesses are currently under intense consumer pressure to offer lower-priced products. As a result, many are reducing prices through cost reduction, but they need some simple techniques to achieve this desired reduction. In this context, machine problems related to unplanned stops and downtime increase their costs. This study discusses the application of the Method of Analysis and Solving Problems (MASP) to reduce machine downtime in a paper packaging company’s production sector. For this application, we use the eight steps of the MASP, considering quality and process improvement tools as a cause-and-effect diagram, a Pareto chart, and 5W1H. These tools made it possible to carry out a more effective analysis process so that it was possible to find the causes of machine downtime in the thermoforming sector. After identifying these causes, supervisors and employees proposed an action plan, executed it, and they standardise those activities. The MASP results in an easy way to find solutions to the described problem.