Manufacturers are losing out on optimum factory designs because they are not involving machinery suppliers from the start, according to conveyor supplier Isoma.
“I think this is an area that food manufacturers are missing out on,” said Tim Starkey, md for Isoma, which is installing machinery at Robert Wiseman’s new Bridgwater dairy. “As a supplier you feel ownership of a project if you get to work on it from the start. If you’re brought into a project later on and you’re one of 20 people, it’s almost as though your opinion isn’t valid.”
He believes that the considerations of in-house staff should also be taken into account. “It’s amazing how many companies don’t ask the staff on the factory floor about an installation. There’s nothing worse than forcing operators to use equipment that they’ve not even seen,” he said.
“Wiseman asks its suppliers and even the cleaner what he thinks! It gets the whole company’s input and everyone’s on board and proud of it.”
Bridgwater will be a highly automated plant aimed at achieving maximum efficiency. “The whole focus of the design has been about keeping the filler running even if everything else has stopped,” said Starkey. “It has been designed for an absolute minimum of staff,” he added.
He claimed that the biggest inefficiency throughout the UK dairy industry was the inability of trolley packers to function. So the firm is installing its new variable speed trolley packers at Bridgwater. “We don’t thrash them to death all day,” said Starkey. “If they need to go fast, they go fast, if not, then they go slower.”
The dairy is set to start operations in December. Wiseman has spent a record £42.1M in capital expenditure in the past year, of which £26.6M has gone on the Bridgwater facility. The company plans to spend a further £60M in the coming year, £39.4M of which will be spent at Bridgwater.
Wiseman’s sales volumes were up 5.9% to 1.46bn litres a year and turnover increased by 6.5% to £605.3M. Pre-tax profits were up 29.4% to £34.6M.