Calcarb Ltd
Bellshill, Strathclyde
Manufacturer and global supplier of premium high purity Carbon Bonded Carbon Fibre ( CBCF)
During 2002/2003 Lean Management Thinking concentrated on workplace organisation ( 5S). In 2003/2004 it focused on the high temperature furnace where process mapping and root cause analysis were developed through PDCA planning. This review highlighted issues with oxidised / eroded lining replacements, incident records, machine changeovers, material and tooling storage. These were addressed and machine efficiency improved by £175k during 2004. Labour utilisation improved to the value of £8k. In 2004/2005, a 3 rd Lean Management Thinking team worked on a 4-week trial of a dedicated Programmer and installation of offline-programming software. Further 5s activity was undertaken alongside downtime & OEE analysis (identifying potential for increasing productivity output to 90 tonnes).
In 2006 Calcarb is preparing to move to a new modern facility and continues to work with Accelerate in developing a TPM culture for on-going process improvement and increased profitability