Improving productivity and supporting new product development

Severfield Modular Solutions (SMS) is a division of Severfield plc that designs and manufactures silo discharge products and large equipment modules known as Severstor units.

Collinson Grant has supported the Executive at SMS since 2021.  Our early support focused on market analysis, mapping the competitive landscape of complimentary markets.  More recently, we have concentrated on production, the ways of working and construction methods in the factory.  We helped ensure Design for Manufacture and Assembly principles were embedded into the design process, creating a feedback loop throughout the internal value chain.

In 2022, we worked with the SMS senior management to evaluate numerous opportunities for organic and acquisitive entry to a new market.  SMS decided that an organic approach would be the preferred route.  This organic approach involved developing a new product which would be manufactured at the company’s factory in North Yorkshire.  We supported the programme as a business case was developed for the board, providing market intelligence, gathering customer requirements, and building a reference collection of existing products.

After supporting the programme’s approval process, we helped review the initial bill of materials (BOM), assessed opportunities for current supply, and modelled future volume-based pricing. We conducted a benchmarking exercise for the UK, the Far East, and Eastern European supply. As the programme progressed, we assessed opportunities to improve the build and procurement of the BOM.

Recently, we have supported the SMS team on the factory floor. We have worked with the design and production teams to assess the current methods of construction and ways of working and build a maturity assessment and action plan for opportunities for improvement. We have supported the factory operatives and senior management in developing standard operating procedures for future builds and helped them refine construction methods. This process captured further opportunities and their effects, enabling an objective assessment of where effort and capital should be allocated.

Our work with the SMS production team reduced production hours by over 50% whilst maintaining quality.