Although one of Britain’s oldest engineering companies, tracing its history back more than 250 years, Sheffield Forgemasters has remained competitive through innovation and embracing change.
While the Sheffield-based business has invested in state-of-the-art equipment, it was predominantly reliant on paper- based and manual reporting processes for its manufacturing throughput. This meant productivity and costs were only known after the job was completed.
Meanwhile, different departments were measuring performance via different methods.
Rob Woodhouse, Master Production Scheduler at Sheffield Forgemasters, said: “Using handwritten cards was
a legacy system which needed overhauling. The lack of oversight that the system offered, meant that we had to assume performance, efficiency and Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), and there was delayed visibility of costs.
“We understood that significant change was needed to support customer requirements and ensure deadline deliveries, and that finding a technology solution would also help us understand our capacity to enhance scheduling, increase productivity and increase profitability.”