Client Impact: Industrial & Assembly Products
Unifi Inc. Profile
Headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, Unifi Inc. is a leading producer and processor of multi-filament polyester and nylon textured yarns. Founded in 1971, Unifi has evolved into one of the most diversified producers of synthetic filament yarns in the world.
The Opportunity
Driven by a passion for innovation and operational excellence, Unifi sought to minimize the percentage of texturing breaks in its yarn products. The broken strands required time to re-establish a connection and resulted not only in increased costs of $2.8 million per year, but also in unnecessary losses due to downtime. The texturing breakage rate had been increasing steadily for months and costing Unifi $56,000 per week to restart. Moreover, the breaks negatively impacted the plant's product yield and threatened to stall customer deliveries.
The Approach
QualPro consultants worked with both management and factory employees, including quality assurance and R&D personnel, to generate innovative ideas to improve the texturing breakage rates.
The Impact
Unifi realized over 40% reduction in texturing breakage rates, and savings around $1.1 Million