Manufacturing improvement bears fruit

A PICME product story

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Jun 22, 2005

AH Marks has completed a programme of work with PICME that has seen the Wyke based manufacturer achieve a quantum leap in process decontamination effectiveness.

Leading specialised organics producer AH Marks (AHM) has completed a programme of work with the Process Industries Centre for Manufacturing Excellence (PICME) that has seen the Wyke based manufacturer achieve a quantum leap in process decontamination effectiveness.

AH Marks and Company is the UK's largest privately owned and independent chemical manufacturing company, employing over 350 people and operating from a single 11 hectare site at Wyke, near Bradford.

Chemicals have been produced at the Wyke site since 1877, when dyestuffs were produced for the local textile industry.

Today, the company manufactures a wide range of specialised organic chemicals for a variety of end use sectors and key customers include manufacturers of crop protection, petrochemicals and biocides.

Last year AHM undertook a structured programme of manufacturing improvement work with PICME which looked at ways to reduce the impact of decontamination on plant capacity in a key area of the plant.

The impact of this work has now been calculated and the net result of the AH Marks team efforts was that decontamination time was reduced from 28% of available time to 8.9%.

Says Owen Dyson, Organisational Development and Training Manager at the company: "Our intention in working with PICME was to achieve significant improvements to strategically important processes".

"In addition, the management team wanted to capture as much of the learning process as possible so similar programmes could be rolled out in other areas on site".

"Our team of operators, craftsmen and middle managers were encouraged by us and by PICME to work together, and quickly developed a will to make the project a success".

"The end result was befitting of the hard work all the team put into the project".

In terms of financial impact, the manufacturing improvement work done by the company with PICME's help is now calculated as contributing a seven figure saving to the AHM's annualised gross margin.

Dyson comments: "In terms of the process optimisation achieved and the shared understanding of key factors that impact on the efficient and effective running of the plant, the overall project has been a success".

Included in the AHM inventory of improvements were: a complete re-assessment of the decontamination process; waste removed from decontamination process and target times agreed; a new system of data collection implemented; a planning matrix updated to raise the awareness of product changes; and operational changes made to column feed rates, water flush, column drainage and mixer settlers.

Sarah Redfern, PICME Engineer, was the leading facilitator for the work at AHM.

She says: "The AHM team showed great commitment by aggressively challenging current practices and striving to implement difficult solutions".

"The team set themselves very high targets in all areas, including workplace organisation, the high standard of which was sustained from the start".

AH Marks will be speaking about these programmes of manufacturing improvement at PICME's annual conference, this year to be held in Telford on 26th and 27th September.