Factory of the Future
The Situation
A large UK building materials manufacturer have developed a revolutionary product through innovation. The product has presented a keen interest to the market and is driving an unexpectedly high early demand. The company manufacturing strategy needed to be scoped and developed in order to meet this demand and so the company approached us to explore the business case for a project to build a new factory that would be able to satisfy this demand. Launch demand is 12 roofs in the 1st year however forecast demand by end 2023 is 7500 roof units per annum.
The Task
Define how a factory would look and function in order to produce the projected annual demand for the new product. Based on a 24hour 7 day a week strategy with a minimal touch (ie highly automated) and utilizing the latest digital technology to enable highly effective and efficient productivity.
The Action / Approach
A complete assessment of the existing site and processes were completed in order to define the critical elements of the manufacturing process for the new product, identifying bottle necks and existing manufacturing capacities.
Using lean and industry 4.0 best practices define new processes. Specify the equipment required and options for process layout.
Define digital technology to unlock productivity, quality, safety, live production data and control as well as environmental impact.
Make recomendations for location and transport solutions.
The Result
We were able to offer a complete design of a “Factory of the Future” solution utilizing robotic automation, digital production software and minimal touch. The factory incorporated enhanced manufacturing practices that projected the ability for the company to meet and exceed the demand of 7500 roof units per annum for the new product including a project costing, timeline, scope and business case.
Through this process it became clear that the requirement for a full-scale factory of the future solution would come at a heavy on cost but over deliver against the demand requirements. An interim solution was proposed to upgrade elements of the existing manufacturing facility that would unlock the required capacity to meet the demand projected for the next 3 years.
Identify and support next steps to unlock interim capacity improvement to match demand inflation.
