With operations running 24 hours a day, the firm frequently ran into significant production delays due to misplaced, lost or out-of-stock materials, while uncontrolled spot buying, more frequent and longer shutdowns, and overuse of materials were also a real problem.
The new system of automated supply devices now allows managers to control access to inventory and know who uses what, when and where.
The company has seen significant direct and indirect savings. On automatic air fittings alone, JCB immediately realised weekly savings of £300. Overall, consumption has been reduced by 30%, out-of-stocks have been eliminated and interruptions in production schedules are a thing of the past.
JCB’s other problem was an inefficient manual tracking and ordering process that was consuming hours of time. Maintenance managers were placing more than 50 orders per month at a processing cost of £90 per order to respond to emergency requests for materials.
Since implementing the automated dispensing solutions, the firm has reduced the number of orders placed for similar materials from more than 50 per month to only 16 per month. This results in an estimated savings on PO processing costs of more than £183,000, or nearly 70%.
Says JCB team leader Neil Crosby: “The Apex automated dispensing solution has significantly reduced our costs and reduced waste. The Trajectory Cloud platform provides us with the option of checking stock that is used frequently and identifies items so that we can action common faults within our equipment.”
JCB is now extending automated dispensing solutions to various locations across the UK to expand on its success.
