Unit Birwelco are specialists in heavy engineering providing large scale equipment. They build furnaces, boilers, and super heaters. They are based in Swansea, Wales, UK.

Our client takes several months to manufacture their specialist super heater products. These are then used in heavy engineering sites such as power stations. With a full order book, our client was finding production planning difficult. They looked at “off the shelf” planning packages and found nothing to meet their needs. They soon realised they needed a bespoke production management tool.

We developed an Excel based production planning tool that allowed our client to enter and edit the details of any contracts they won. The tool then showed their planners several graphical reports showing the impact of the project. It would show which areas of the production line were over capacity or under capacity.

This allowed the planners to schedule work or make other changes to their planning on the fly. This helped them avoid over loading sections of their factory and the underutilisation of other sections.

Our client has seen many benefits since they started using the tool including;

• More effective planning
• Improved production output
• Shortened production times
• The ability to take on extra work