Who doesn’t know such situations: many time-intensive small-volume products that reduce production capacity? Or a product portfolio that has become too large over the years and thus difficult to organize? Stockpiling of raw materials that are rarely used? Necessary rework to correct production fluctuations? Excessive forklift traffic in production and warehouses, or declining margins in traditional processes?
Often, product portfolios have grown over very many years. They were developed by researchers who focused exclusively on the benefits for their customers. Despite this, or precisely because of it, companies are now coming up against capacity and complexity limits. They face the problem of having to make their production and logistics processes more efficient. Only in this way further growth is possible.
TMC has specialized in supporting companies in this change process as an independent external partner. At the beginning of such projects there is an analysis: how often do raw materials occur in existing formulations, how complex are formulations and where are the bottlenecks in the processes? We identify similar raw materials with the aim of reducing their number. We look for recipe overlaps in order to define and develop useful semi-finished products. Raw material consolidation is realized in close cooperation with R&D, production and purchasing. In doing so, we always have the unchanged quality of the end products in mind: nothing must change for the end customers.
Particular attention is paid to the optimization of production processes. The customer himself decides which suppliers he wants to work with and to what extent he wants to invest, if necessary. Even with small investments, large effects can be achieved in terms of capacity and effectiveness. We know the market, but maintain our independence and do not co-operate exclusively with any supplier.
TMC has created its own modern and high-performance laboratory capacities in order to be able to practically demonstrate the optimization of formulations and processes. We thus support our customers who always have to manage change processes alongside ongoing day-to-day business.
Frank Kother presented at ETCC 2022 methods by which optimizations of formulations and processes can be achieved. Realistic scenarios were used to show how such optimizations affect production capacity. We discussed how traceable savings potentials can be realized. Faster processes, better (more stable) quality and thus less rework, lower general process costs.
