SME Success Story: Samuel Heath's digital transformation journey
Building a future-ready factory: Samuel Heath’s digital transformation journey
A leading designer and manufacturer of luxury bathroom fittings and architectural hardware, Samuel Heath was founded in Birmingham over 200 years ago.
The business has grown and evolved with time and is continuing to embrace new technologies, after WMG’s support via the Made Smarter West Midlands programme.
Challenge: Understanding the live usage of factory floor machines
Manufacturing Director at Samuel Heath, Martin Harrison, wanted to improve the availability of live data from the vast range of machines throughout their factory.
“The danger there is that if we don’t get full productivity information straight away, we don’t know if we are using the machines to their full capacity as well as maintaining the right quality levels,” he said.
Samuel Heath sought advice on the best tools and digital solutions to provide live data from their machinery, to identify where they could make improvements.
Solution: Fully integrated Machine monitoring system to enhance utilisation and drive efficiency
Samuel Heath had multiple machines from different manufacturers, as well as legacy equipment, so needed advice from WMG on what system would be most effective, support them in improving productivity of their machines, and helping them to be more competitive in their sector.
Onur Eren, Principal Engineer at WMG said: “We started by running an in-depth diagnostic workshop, evaluating both the business maturity and digital readiness levels. This allowed us to align their business objectives with digital initiatives across short, medium, and long-term goals.
“From there, we worked closely with Samuel Heath to shape a robust digital strategy and developed a clear, actionable Digital Transformation Roadmap,” he said.
WMG helped Samuel Heath complete the application form to apply for a £20,000 grant from Made Smarter West Midlands, which the business match-funded, to buy a software system to develop direct links to its machines, to access data and input this information into their Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system.
Impact: Future-proofing the factory
WMG guided Samuel Heath through the process, offering impartial, technology-agnostic advice to help them find the most suitable solution.
A trial period where the new system is running parallel with the current system is now underway and Martin is confident the machines will soon be fully integrated.
“We produce tens of thousands of parts each year and our range is quite wide to cope with customer demand,” he said. “We have moved away from being purely a make-to-stock business to being more focused on make-to-order because the market has changed and demands a lot more variety in finishes and combination of components.”
Samuel Heath is now able to focus on where the problems are by analysing the machines and if a machine has had more downtime than expected, they can focus on maintenance or whether it is due to slow set-up times and what they can do to speed that up.
Samuel Heath is now able to focus on where the problems are by analysing the machines and if a machine has had more downtime than expected, they can focus on maintenance or whether it is due to slow set-up times and what they can do to speed that up.
Samuel Heath plans to further digitise the business once the machines are all fully integrated through dashboard TV screens near each machine, to identify issues quickly and resolve them immediately.
They also plan to use the data collected from the software to inform future investments, particularly in automation.
“Working in collaboration with Made Smarter and WMG meant we were dealing with people who really take the time to understand, which means we have introduced a digital system that will meet our requirements now and in the future", Martin said.
Read more about the partnership with Made Smarter West Midlands here.
Get support with digitising your business: complete our WMG SME engagement form here.