From providing engineering services from a small garage to a 55-strong, £11m turnover enterprise exporting products to Ukraine, China and New Zealand, Storth is a compelling Cumbrian success story.
The digital transformation workshop identified potential areas for improvement in sales, systems, resource and production planning, and automation.
Storth identified the welding process in its production line as a bottleneck that was causing delays in schedules.
Julian explained: “As a company we have earned a reputation for quality products with short four-week lead times. But the fluctuating demand means our welders have been unable to maintain enough output during high workload periods. We regularly had to take up to three welders away from other product ranges to meet demand which caused production schedules to be delayed, wasting time further down the assembly line.
“This, in combination with lack of skilled welders available in the local area, has resulted in losing business to competitors. The specific welding work slowing us down is repetitive and very much suited for automated production.”