International healthcare manufacturer Vernacare has transformed production line efficiency after installing machine monitoring technology from FourJaw Manufacturing Analytics at its factory in Worksop, UK.
Vernacare, which produces infection prevention, clinical waste management and surgical products for healthcare customers in Europe and North America, installed FourJaw on its dry wipe production lines in 2023 to identify how efficiently machines were running and determine the root causes of downtime.
Credit: FourJaw Manufacturing Analytics/Vernacare
Machine data obtained with FourJaw provided insights into efficiency, enabling Vernacare to identify the main causes of unplanned downtime on its production lines. This information helped Vernacare’s operations and production managers work with their machine providers’ maintenance teams to address outstanding issues and make a business case to upgrade machine parts for improved uptime.
Vernacare has also gained a precise understanding of how long each production run would take to deliver target outputs, enabling it to plan more proactively and efficiently to meet customer demand. This approach enabled Vernacare to eliminate its production backlog, reduce the frequency of production changeovers, cut machine downtime by 20 per cent, improve on-time delivery rates, and almost eliminate the need for rush jobs and overtime.
Andy Toulson, Operations Manager at Vernacare, comments: “FourJaw has given us knowledge and the power to address key capacity challenges. We’ve removed all back orders and are now in a position to deliver orders on time for customers worldwide, a tangible benefit of our unprecedented increase in machine productivity, and we’ve also improved staff retention with a calmer, less stressful working environment where operators have autonomy to get on with the job.”
Chris Iveson, CEO at FourJaw Manufacturing Analytics, comments: “Vernacare shows how a relatively small intervention can snowball to deliver much bigger operational and commercial business benefits to a wide range of stakeholders. We are thrilled to see our technology help such an innovative healthcare manufacturer improve its productivity and production processes, and the difference it has made to their customers and staff members alike.”