Crane Plastics Ltd - MAS East Midlands helped Northampton manufacturer implement process improvements
Following a factory move; Northamptonshire based plastics manufacturer Crane Plastics Ltd contacted the Manufacturing Advisory Service (MAS) for help to introduce new process improvements and optimise factory layout.
“Our priority was to make the process much more logical and cut out all the unnecessary journeys employees had to make”
Ian Davie, MAS Advisor
When the Managing Director of Northampton-based Crane Plastics approached the Manufacturing Advisory Service (MAS) East Midlands for support following its move to bigger premises, he had no idea this would be the start of such a fruitful relationship.
The company’s core business is plastic fabrication – taking plastic sheet and cutting, bending and bonding it to make a range of plastic products, mainly for the food and packaging industries - although it is increasingly taking more orders for the lifting and transportation sectors.
Practical help to improve the factory’s layout has substantially increased productivity and capacity, and the introduction of robust production control measures has brought significant efficiency improvements to Crane’s larger operation at Sywell Aerodrome.
Craig Burdon, owner and Managing Director, said: “Moving seemed like an ideal time to see what MAS could do for us. Its Advisers spent the day with us initially, carrying out a thorough audit of our new set-up.
“This ‘diagnostic’ exercise was free and no stone was left unturned, so when we received the report setting out the recommendations for change, we had every confidence in what was being suggested.”
Improving the organisation of the shop floor started with overhauling the work flow for production of the Testick – a small plastic and metal device which food manufacturers can use to test metal sensors on production lines.
Ian Davie, MAS Adviser said: “I can only describe the layout as spaghetti junction in terms of how convoluted the existing work flow was. Our priority was to make the process much more logical and cut out all the unnecessary journeys employees had to make. We then moved onto processes relating to other products and worked to improve the storage facilities which were also problematic.”
“Production is now visibly smoother and you can see that it’s considerably quicker too. The exercise has helped us boost our capacity as well as making room for two new Computed Numerically Controlled (CNC) machines we needed to accommodate,” explained Craig who forecasts Crane Plastic’s turnover breaking the £1m threshold this coming year. It has remained steady at £860,000 during the two years straddling the recession.
MAS also recognised that Crane Plastics had no meaningful production control systems in place, principally because it had grown so quickly over the past five years without time to adequately upgrade its support systems.
Craig added: “Our antiquated methods were all manual, but our Adviser was an absolute wizard on Excel and was able to set us up sophisticated spreadsheets to automate quoting and directly link it to improved production planning processes. Quotes, for example, can now be generated in a third of the previous time.
“We’re now a lot quicker and information is easily traceable, so we can get breakdowns of material and labour costs, and profit margins at a touch of a button. It’s definitely revolutionised the way we work.”
MAS in the East Midlands is funded by East Midlands Development Agency (emda).
