An international offshore engineering company with major facilities in North America and Europe was engaged in a multi-billion-dollar oil exploration project in West Africa.  With a wealth of expertise in composite material products, the senior team were unprepared for the production difficulties they encountered in manufacturing product with chemical and physical characteristics unlike anything they had known.  As quality problems mounted and efficiencies eroded, delivery dates slipped.  On the critical path for the project, the company faced punitive penalty payments.

Our consultants were engaged to (re) design, develop and optimise operational manufacturing processes, working together with the client team.

An initial activity was to map out the process in the operation.  Focusing on process controls and information flows, the objective was to understand the process, the key variables and how these could best be managed.

A number of key activities followed this:

• production yield analysis
• computer simulation of the manufacturing and operations processes to understand fully cycle time opportunities
• Design of Experiments analysis, to characterize the process and the product and to enable efficiency improvements

The consulting team worked closely with the client team. The results were significant.

Dramatic benefits were gained through our work together with the client:

• Throughput was improved by 400%
• Yield performance improved by 800%

The entire process became significantly more productive.  Faced with ‘additional’ anticipated penalties of $9M for late deliveries, the business was re-imbursed $8M of “claw back” from previously imposed interim penalties. The disciplines established in this project continue to be applied by the client.