How Snellman lifted OEE by 15.7% with real-time data
A solid foundation, and a need for real-time visibility
Snellman is a family business from Pietarsaari with over 70 years of experience producing cold cuts and meat.
Before reaching out to Factbird, Snellman had a MES setup for logging downtime and following up. It worked for registration, but it didn’t give them the real-time view they wanted, or a simple daily workflow that teams would stick with consistently.
That is where reaction time and routines start to matter.
Because in production, timing is everything. If feedback arrives after the shift, you can still write a report, but you cannot steer the day. Snellman wanted real-time data so teams could see how they were performing while it still mattered, and so improvement work could start immediately on the line. They also wanted to involve more people in fact-based work, instead of relying on a small group to translate yesterday’s numbers for everyone else.
From the start, they focused on three things. More output, less scrap, and decisions grounded in data people trust.
In this kind of production, those three goals are tightly linked. If you move them, the economics move with them. Output, yield, and waste flow straight into gross margin, and when you cannot see problems early enough, small losses have time to compound.
The part that made this work
Large-scale tech programs miss expectations more often than most leaders expect. A 2024 Boston Consulting Group study found that only 30% of companies fully meet timeline, budget, and scope expectations.
Manufacturing teams also have to move past the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mindset and get comfortable with small, rapid improvements. That is hard to do when a new system feels like extra work with an unclear payoff.
The real test is the daily routine. When production is busy, logging slips. Data quality drifts, trust in the system evaporates, and improvement conversations slow down because people start debating the numbers instead of the process.
With Snellman, we planned for that drop-off before it had a chance to happen.
Dino Redzepovic, Factbird’s Customer Success Manager, ran a two-day coaching session focused on the behavioral side of the change. What “good logging” looks like in practice, what routines need to exist around the data, and what each role gets out of it, so the effort feels worth it. Operators, technicians, managers, and the people driving improvement work all needed the same shared expectations.
“Those first two days were about habits. If teams do not agree on how to log and how to use the data, you just end up with numbers people do not trust. We made sure each role could see what changes in their day when the feedback is real-time and reliable. Once that clicked, the buy-in was there.” – Dino Redzepovic, Factbird’s Customer Success Manager
Snellman’s culture did the rest. They approached the rollout like operational work, not just a software install. People showed up engaged and curious. They took the unglamorous part seriously too. In practice, that meant agreeing on what the data means, setting routines that would hold up in daily work, and keeping the scope realistic before expanding.
What changed with Factbird on the floor
Snellman already had a way to register downtime and production events. The issue was what happened next. The data either arrived too late to be useful, or it took too much effort to keep it accurate during a busy day.
With Factbird, the same events started turning into real-time feedback. The kind that shows up while the line is still running, and while there is still time to do something about it.
That shows up clearly in how Ronnie Granlund, Production Director at Snellman, talks about Factbird.
“It is easy to implement, easy to use, and our daily work is made easier when we get the data immediately. And it’s a very important part of how we develop our tools for having more facts to work with as a basis for our decisions and for improvements.” – Ronnie Granlund, Production Director at Snellman
That line about daily work is the heart of it. When feedback arrives on time, teams can adjust while the shift is still alive.
Making the routine hold when production is busy
Everyone loves the idea of fast installation. The question is whether the routine still holds when production comes under pressure.
Factories do not get to roll out a new system in calm conditions. Teams have to do it while production is running, people are busy, and priorities compete. That is why ease of use decides whether logging stays consistent once the novelty wears off.
When a workflow feels heavy, people skip steps. That leads to drift in data quality, and trust fades.
That is what makes Ronnie’s point about speed and operator education so important. Fast installation gets you started. Training and habits are what keep the data clean and turn it into results.
“One of the things that are most important is the very fast installation. You can get the data in a couple of hours if you have everything prepared. You get it up and running, and of course, then you have to educate the operators for the loggings, and so on. But I think we are very happy so far with how Factbird has performed.” – Ronnie Granlund, Production Director at Snellman
Real-time data makes a huge difference. The impact grows when people learn what to use it for.
Keeping maintenance focused
New systems have a tendency to fail because they weigh down the people who keep the plant running. Maintenance gets pulled into extra tasks, extra troubleshooting, and extra “can you just” requests. Preventive work gets deprioritized and avoidable problems appear. The factory pays a heavy price for it, once in added downtime, then again in dropped morale.
Linus Björkskog, Process Developer at Snellman, describes the Factbird rollout plainly.
“It was very easy and fast. It has been a couple lines a day easily, and the maintenance department can still do their normal thing.” – Linus Björkskog, Process Developer at Snellman
That last detail carries more weight than it looks like. If maintenance gets pulled into extra admin and troubleshooting, preventive work slips and the whole plant pays for it. When they can keep doing what they do best, adoption becomes much smoother.
Results after six months
After getting Factbird up and running, Snellman achieved:
- +15.7% uplift in OEE
- 29% increase in output
The numbers are impressive, and they are also believable in context, because they come from a very intentional and grounded transformation.
Snellman moved the data closer to the work. Stops were logged in a way people could keep up with. The feedback showed up early enough for teams to adjust during the shift. That is where momentum comes from, clear facts, fewer debates, and faster follow-through.
What they are building toward next
Snellman’s longer-term direction is bigger than a KPI scoreboard. The ambition is to build a production environment where it is easy to do the right thing, even when the day is hectic.
They are building a way of working where the signals are clear and the data is trusted. Deviations show up early, and improvement work feels like something the whole team owns across roles.
Scrap is part of that direction too. They have not started measuring it yet, and that is fine. The important part is that they have the foundation in place to do it properly. When there is trust in the production facts and there’s a rhythm for acting on them, measuring scrap becomes a natural next step.
Closing thought
The best factories win when the right data reaches the right people in time, and when the habits around it are strong enough to hold on a busy day.
Snellman had a clear reason to change. Factbird brought a practical system and a careful onboarding that respected the reality of operators and maintenance. That combination gave Snellman a running start, and the results followed.
