Going green pays for toymaker

The family owned business based in Caldeck, Cumbria worked with the local Manufacturing Advisory Service (MAS) team to free bottlenecks in production and reduce waste material sent to landfill. Twoey uses waste wood as fuel for the factory heating system, but the same horizontal beam saw was used to process this as well as to provide parts for products, and the result was a bottleneck in production. A cost-benefit analysis showed that a £28,000 investment in a new hogging wood-grinding machine (pictured) for the waste disposal tasks would quickly pay dividends, and this was acquired with financial support from a £10,000 Capital Equipment Fund grant from the Northwest Regional Development Agency. The new machine increased equipment availability and productivity, also cutting down time wasted by staff moving scrap material around the factory, made full use of scrap wood as a sustainable energy source and reduced the amount sent unnecessarily to landfill. It also cleared the scrap wood store from the car park, which has freed up additional space.