Operational efficiency

Our specialists come from similar companies to our clients and understand their problems, drivers and opportunities. We are also leaders on current thinking, techniques and best practice.

We know that manufacturing companies need to use raw materials, production facilities, and labour in a cost-effective way, that product demand is often volatile and there is always pressure to reduce lead times and stock inventories, and to add new variants to existing product ranges.

This leads to short production runs and frequent product changes, impacting on productivity, quality, health and safety.

We will work with you to identify and investigate influencing factors such as production speed, product quality and mix, the reliability of production plant and machinery and the need for manual intervention. We will then agree the parameters which drive your business prior to developing an implementation plan.

[Operational efficiency profit margin diagram]

In addition to this expert capability, we regularly use tools to help achieve the best results, two of which are Cost of Goods analysis and Process Simulation.

Cost of Goods analysis

We use this to predict and quantify production costs. The models have the power and flexibility to make virtually any parameter a variable and to understand the cost sensitivity to it. We can, therefore, tailor them to individual clients, taking into account their specific products, processes and aspirations to quantify the cost impact of process changes and competing technologies.

Specifically, we can use it to assist in:

process scheduling
capacity estimation
debottlenecking
facility design
capital investment
technology evaluation
managing uncertainty.

Process simulation

We use this to ensure we achieve optimum process design and to identify bottlenecks. It is most useful to us and our clients in identifying areas where non-value added activities are taking place or where a particular step is holding up the whole process. The problem with identifying and rectifying bottlenecks is that another one usually appears in another part of the process.

Using our simulations, we:

can simulate the effect of any modification before incurring any capital expenditure
are able to find optimum solutions, looking at all stages of the process and the effect of modifications on each other.

Practice has shown us that we can use it effectively on a wide range of production and allied processes where individual steps can be set up with flow rates and IBC capacities, numbers of each size, machinery and processing capacities etc.