Precision measuring machine and digital content system helps firm thrive

While the manufacturing processes at Ceandess have been refined and improved over the years, it would occasionally come unstuck during its quality control procedures.

The parts it supplies to its clients have to conform to a high standard of precision for them to work effectively and reliably in a highly competitive market.

However, its quality control relied on measuring by hand. Although accurate most of the time, the process was vulnerable to human error and took a long time.

In addition, this was compounded by Ceandess having no way to digitally store its thousands of paper-based technical drawings, which were stored in ageing filing cabinets on the shopfloor.

For Ceandess to move forward, it needed to embrace digital technology – not only to measure its parts for its customers, but to keep track of important data and be able to access it easily when needed.

Ed added: “We’ve been around as a company for a long time, but times have moved on and our customers demand precision. If they don’t get it, they will happily switch to rivals.

“It was clear that our quality control needed to improve, but the expense needed to acquire an advanced measuring machine was very high. That’s where Made Smarter came in.”

Ceandess was introduced to Made Smarter through Jit Gatcha, Industrial Digital Technology Specialist covering the Black Country LEP Growth Hub region.

Jit contacted Nasar Jockey, Principal Engineer at Made Smarter partner WMG, who paid a visit to Ceandess to determine what improvements could be made.

Nasar spotted the urgent need to digitise their paper-based manufacturing and quality control processes, as well as to embrace a data driven approach more widely across the company.

He recommended Ceandess to adopt a cloud-based approach to recording and storing data to save the team lots of time in searching through filing cabinets, manually recording quality data, generating hand drawing stage drawings and maintaining historic records all on paper.

Ceandess were also advised to apply for a match-funded grant of £17,500 to acquire a Keyence Image Dimension Measurement System – a state-of-the-art measuring machine which can automatically measure up to 300 features for multiple parts to micron accuracy in seconds within the press of a button.

Jit and Nasar helped Ceandess with completing the grant application, and the machine and software was purchased towards the end of 2021.

Ed said: “Made Smarter was brilliant in supporting us with our application, and once the money was in our account, we were able to reap the benefits in no time at all.

“Converting our paper files to digital actually took less time than expected. Once the laborious process of collating the files was done, we sent them off to be scanned and they were uploaded onto the new Laserfiche system very quickly after that.

“And our Keyence machine was installed with minimal fuss too. Integrating it with our digital content system was straightforward and meant we could start using it right away.”

After using the new Keyence machine and content management system for a few months, Ceandess is already seeing productivity improve significantly.

Parts are now measured incredibly quickly and with virtually no errors – and even if there are, errors can be quickly identified and corrected thanks to the Laserfiche system streamlining data storage.

This has meant that Ceandess is able to fulfil more orders for its clients and bring in more revenue.

Ed added: “Even though we haven’t had the new machine and system for especially long, it is already making a massive difference to the way we work.

“When we finish making parts for clients, the quality control process is now so much faster. The Keyence machine gives us a measurement in no time at all, and there isn’t the risk of human error producing an inaccurate result.

“It can also be reprogrammed to measure different products, which saves us time compared to having to find the correct analogue measuring tool for the various parts we may have made on one order.

“And the Laserfiche system has been fantastic – we can now access our orders, drawings and measurements much more easily, which can be crucially important when something goes wrong. It’s something we at Ceandess have been crying out for.

“What’s great is our team of 14 staff have taken to these new processes like ducks to water. It took very little time getting them used to the new way of working, and since it is much easier to complete day-to-day tasks, our staff have become far more productive.

“Without Made Smarter, we simply would not have had the capital to purchase a digital measuring machine and would not have known how to go about digitalising our admin processes across the business.

“Our customers are already seeing the changes with orders fulfilled more quickly and with much higher reliability.”