Chester Medical, a carton and leaflet production and printing facility serving the pharmaceutical industry based in Deeside Flintshire, joined forces with Addition Design’s AddParts service to find ways in which digital spares could assist in reducing the cost and impact of downtime on spare parts for the company’s gluing and folding production lines.
Thanks to AddParts expertise in 3D scanning, digital data management and industrial 3D printing Chester Medical have benefited from savings in downtime as well as a more than 40 per cent cost savings on critical components for their machinery.
AddParts, an exclusive service of Addition Design based at the Advanced Manufacturing Park Technology Centre in South Yorkshire, supplies digital spares for automated production and packing lines giving manufacturing customers in multiple sectors a competitive advantage by reducing downtime.
Tom Fripp, director at Addition Design, said: “Chester Medical operates a number of automated and semi-automated production lines to print both folded cartons and patient information leaflets. These machines run at very high speeds to ensure that products are delivered at competitive prices but with speed and accuracy comes complexity and hundreds of moving parts that are critical to smooth, accurate operation.
“The machines are typically supplied by major manufacturers and require a steady stream of replacement components. However, it is not unheard of for such components to be available with particularly long lead times of up to two months so either spares are held in stock, meaning inventory management, space and cash tied up in stores, or risk expensive downtime.
“So, Chester Medical approached us as they had identified two key components initially that often fail and wanted to look at ways in which digital spares could assist in parts for the company’s gluing and folding lines.
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