Fabdec Ltd are a leading developer and manufacturer of stainless-steel heat transfer products. The business engaged with the Manufacturing Growth Programme to support them with business improvement projects while also receiving a grant funded towards improving their business growth.
Incorporated in 1960, the business manufactures products for industries such as; dairy, breweries and water heating. The business is very focussed on raising the profile of their brand in these industries, while fully utilising their CAD system’s potential, and increasing manufacturing productivity.
One of the challenges for Fabdec was that they needed to improve their internal design capabilities and to fully understand and maximise the potential of their current CAD system.
Their list of challenges goes even further to include their desire to ensure that all products meet WRAS approval (Water Regulations Advisory Scheme), while also increasing their manufacturing productivity internally.
Fabdec have accessed grant funding towards multiple business improvement projects from the Manufacturing Growth Programme (MGP) over the last 4 years. Chris Powell, the Managing Director of Fabdec Ltd has faced some challenges to the business but he has sought to overcome these with help from the MGP and has seen great results.
To get an overview of the business, Catherine Bray, Manufacturing Growth Manager from MGP, conducted a GROWTHmapper, business diagnostic. This was done prior to any projects going ahead and helped to identify the key areas for improvement. The review determined that Chris’ focus should be within ‘productivity and capacity’.
Catherine stated; “Chris and the team at Fabdec recognise the need to continually invest in the business to achieve their growth ambitions and it has been great to work with them on such a variety of projects which has been enabled through the support from the programme.”
Having worked with MGP, Fabdec Ltd has seen some excellent results. A capital grant was used to help them purchase tooling for their new press brake which has reduced set up times and boosted productivity. MGP also assisted Fabdec to provide their designers with tailored coaching to realise the full potential of their CAD software. There has been great time savings on design work and standardisation of work which has allowed a more streamlined process to take place. With this win of time, Fabdec’s designers have more time to focus on R&D or bespoke orders that would offer more financial gain.
The future growth strategy for the business is to expand their product offering into new sectors and build on their ability to develop bespoke systems.
To find out more about Fabdec Ltd visit www.fabdec.com/en