Worcester Bosch boosts energy efficiency with power tool change

As well as contributing to reducing the factory's carbon footprint, the project has also helped reduce noise levels and improved health and safety on the production lines, with the reduction in air lines meaning reduced hazards for the operators. The £70,000 contract saw Buck & Hickman supply the site with around 100 Bosch electric and cordless screwdrivers, replacing the traditional air-compressed tools used on the assembly lines making gas-fired combination boilers. The factory has now almost completely replaced all air-powered tools with electrical and cordless ones in line with its drive towards lean manufacturing. David Cutler, manufacturing engineering group leader at Worcester Bosch Group, said: "We undertook the project to come up with a new concept of assembly line to be a platform for the future, reducing our carbon footprint and making our products in a leaner, more cost-effective way. "Together with Buck & Hickman we compared a number of criteria such as energy costs, ergonomics and handling, flexibility, environmental impact, and cost performance - and decided that electric and cordless tools were the way forward." The lean line at the Worcester manufacturing facility produces between 90 and 130 boilers per shift, with a flexible quantity of up to 15 Assembly Operatives working on the line at any one time.