Major reduction in build time helps company success
One of the UK's leading manufacturers of agricultural crop sprayers has doubled its turnover without increasing overheads with the help of experts from the Manufacturing Technology Centre, part of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, supported by Innovate UK.
Chafer Machinery, which can trace its history back more than 100 years, has reduced the time needed to build its crop-spraying machines from 370 hours to 205 hours, resulting in major savings and improvements in delivery times.
An SME team from the MTC's Manufacturing Support Services operation, based in Coventry, worked with Chafer to help them meet delivery times, reduce build hours, increase capacity and improve flexibility, ensuring on-time delivery to customers.
The MTC team improved the factory layout at Chafer's Gainsborough manufacturing plant, reduced work in progress, reduced production costs and identified areas where investment in technology could bring about productivity and profitability gains. Chafer's workforce was involved in the improvement programme which reduced man hours per machine by 45 per cent.
Chafer builds technologically advanced spraying equipment for the agricultural and aviation industries. The company was established in 1901 and designs and manufactures all of its sprayers in the UK.
Dean Baker, director of the MTC's Business Launch Centre and Manufacturing Support Services team, said the work with Chafer had demonstrated how MTC teams could use their expertise to improve productivity and competitiveness in established SMEs.
The MTC's Manufacturing Support Services team works with SMEs to improve productivity and processes. They have access to the MTC's world-class advanced manufacturing and research facilities, as well as the MTC's team of engineering and manufacturing experts.
The team has worked with more than 500 SMEs, and at any one time has more than 150 live projects.
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