Capital Refractories Ltd
plastic ceramics
Key Achievements
The Manufacturing Challenge
Capital Refractories is one of the largest independent refractory companies in the UK, manufacturing, supplying and installing high quality refractory products to metal melters for almost 50 years.
The Quality Manager of the Derbyshire-based company approached the Manufacturing Advisory Service (MAS) for support following problems experienced whilst attempting to change their product based on a client’s request. "The company’s core business is plastic ceramics manufacturing," MAS Advisor Dean Barnes explains; "however, after a client requested to alter aspects of the core product, the yield significantly dropped. What was needed was a fixed process control in Induction Furnace Linings in order to produce consistency in product output."
Following the client request Capital returned to their original settings without success and it became impossible to reproduce the products on a consistent basis. David Owen, the Quality Manager, said: "internal skills and knowledge had been exhausted at this point. I had met a MAS Advisor on an AS9100 auditors course when they provided in house lean manufacturing support, so when a customer suggested that a Six Sigma event would be advantageous in determining if process improvement was possible, MAS was contacted."
MAS Action
MAS Advisor Dean Barnes met with David and began to look at the process improvement that could be made at Capital. After performing a full diagnostic review of the company, Dean sourced consultants specific to the business’s requirements.
The appropriate expertise was found in approved MAS consultant Godfrey Vallance of Godfrey-Vallance Ltd. An expert in Lean and Six Sigma, Godfrey agree to look at some specific areas of the manufacturing process. Having identified a team from within Capital Refractories to be a part of the project, Godfrey carried out an investigation to isolate and either eliminate or verify the mixing, machine and kiln variables that existed to accurately model and manufacture the product.
The team from Capital worked with the consultant to improve process flow, data gathering, process charting, process capability, measurement of gate milestones and root cause analysis to improve the product yield.
Results
As a result of the intervention, Capital Refractories were able to create four new jobs in manufacturing and quality control as well as training three employees in Six Sigma, including Quality Manager David Owen.
"The quality of MAS support for manufacturing in these difficult times cannot be too highly applauded," David explains. "The services used have assisted improved the manufacturing process and configuration management by the introduction of Six Sigma protocols into the process development of specific core production."
David estimates that as a direct result of the MAS support received £2,000,000 of additional business will be generated, £300,000 of profit generated and £100,000 of costs saved. In total, Capital Refractories will have received £2,400,000 of gross value added to the business.
