Of all the issues facing fabricators, manufacturing is key. If you can't get your production right everything else is bound to suffer. Until recently anyone could claim to know what constituted good performance in fabrication. With little evidence to back up the statistics, investment decisions, fabrication advice and even factory layouts were proposed on the flimsiest basis. Decisions made in this way are not without damaging consequences.

But this is changing, with a new web enabled initiative from Michael Rigby Associates. The Manufacturing Clinic is sponsored by leading system company Status and Window Industries, with selected highlights featured monthly in Window Industries. The initiative comprises three main resources for anyone in the industry involved in manufacturing: an online Clinic, Norms database, and a Best Practice Club, all fact-based and committed to helping improve the level of manufacturing efficiency.

Driven by David Amos, one of the industry's key advisors on manufacturing and logistics, the aim of this initiative is to get to the heart of the 'nitty gritty' issues confronting this generation of fabricator. David comments: “I've spent much of the last 2 years with fabricators of all types and sizes across the country, gathering information and making it available on-line. Some may find the results surprising.”

FACT: An elite group of fabricators is emerging. They include companies who are incredibly profitable, but not necessarily big.
FACT: Most are not doing it with significant investment in state-of-the-art machinery.
FACT: The cream of this industry are using their heads and working smarter not simply investing in smarter machinery.
FACT: What may be good today, may be average tomorrow.

On-line Clinic features include: a questions and answers facility where you can submit real problems you're having in your factory and get a speedy response; an archive of previously asked questions and answers giving you access to issues that are affecting other fabricators; a search facility so you can get straight to the issues you're interested in.

The Manufacturing Clinic is linked to a Manufacturing Norms database dedicated to improving fabricators' productivity and performance: This online database contains more production data than is available from any other source, on or off-line. It contains the combined vital statistics of a large number of different types and size of window company, from the very largest to the smallest, from specialists to those with a mix of business. Any fabricator can submit some key ratios on direct labour hours per frame, frames per employee, lead time etc to get a free starter for ten benchmark of where they stand compared to the industry best, worst and average.

The information and the identity of companies who enter questions, submit data or use the clinic or database is confidential. Neither Status nor Window Industries have access to the data or identity of firms using them and names will not be published on or off-line. The initiative is managed and run by David Amos and his team at Michael Rigby Associates.

Steve Hanson, General Manager of Status comments: “Status have taken the lead in sponsoring the Manufacturing Clinic, because to date, lots of manufacturing 'wisdom' has been based on assumption rather than fact. Now for the first time there is a free, confidential resource available for the industry as a whole no matter what profile system you use. There are no restrictions on frequency of use or type of question, provided it is related to manufacturing or logistics. Status are known for the business support we provide our customers to help them develop their full potential. Part of this process depends on knowledge and a commitment to continuous improvement for the whole industry. That's where internet initiatives like this one come in. Using new technology we can make this kind of information available to everyone. This tool is invaluable and we urge you to take part.”