News
TS 16949 News
February 21, 2008
Alpha Rowen are planning to achieve accreditation to TS 16949 by the end of 2008. This project has been put in place by Alpha Rowen with the support of Accelerate and with the consultancy services of Pro Enviro.
Current Status
We have updated our Quality Management System to cover the TS 16949 standard and have revised our FMEA's, Control Plans and Flow Charts. We are currently working on the measurements we require to monitor, control and continually improve our performance.
Improvement teams have been set up and are being led by Phil Withers and Adam Haynes who are taking the level 3 NVQ in Business Improvement Techniques being supported by Newcastle-under-Lyme Technical College (NULC). There are also six other employees taking the level 2 NVQ.
NULC have also helped provide NVQ training in Technical Services for other operators.
New Business System
February 19, 2008
We are currently working with Retriever Technology, our existing supplier, to update our software so that we can improve the service we provide to you. For many years now we have used the same route-card system to provide the A5-sized delivery notes and production route-cards that you are familiar with. Within the next few weeks that will change. The new system is a development from the existing one and will improve our ability to track and plan your work through our factory. It will also enable us to communicate with you at key points through that process. Significantly, it will also simplify the paperwork you receive from us. On dispatch from Alpha-Rowen we intend that you will just receive an A4 delivery note which will tell you the job that we have treated and the Inspection results for the batch. You will no longer receive the copy of the route-card or the SPC graph. The system is designed so that any work that has not been checked and passed off will not have a delivery note. Production of the delivery note is confirmation that the work is OK. Most improvements are internal and relate to the furnace planning and data retrieval. Getting these key areas right will undoubtedly improve our service to you.Work with Accelerate
February 18, 2008
Through the autumn of 2007 in conjunction with Pro Enviro and Peter Arnott of Accelerate we made applications for various grants. This has enabled us to recoup some money we have invested in Capital Projects and Business Development. Many of those projects are now nearing completion and our aim has been to give a boost to Alpha Rowen and set us in a stronger position to meet future challenges.TS 16949
Key to future success for Alpha Rowen is the continual improvement of how we deliver on our service to our customers. Moving to the more demanding automotive standard TS 16949 will help us to focus even more strongly on meeting the needs of our customers. Further information is provided in a separate news item.Extra processing capability
Currently 95% of our business is Austemper and whilst that has enabled us to focus all our efforts on developing our people and our equipment in this area, it means we are exposed given the nature of Manufacturing in the UK and the threat presented by work being lost overseas. We have therefore invested in converting some austemper equipment to enable us to offer a greater volume of oil hardening. This will allow us to offer a broader range of processes to our customers whilst remaining in the continuous equipment area which is our main area of expertise.Energy Efficiency
We have made changes to the burner system on an austempering shaker furnace, in a repeat of a previous project last year. The redesign of the burner tubes and the higher efficiency burners will allow an improvement in heat transfer and will both increase process flexibility and offer some savings in energy usage.Marketing
We have not had much of a marketing presence for a while so to enable us to publicise our new processes and improved quality standard we have developed a new website and will also produce some brochures to support our business developmentRoutecard system
We have had the same routecard system for many years now and whilst it provides decent paperwork and records our SPC data, it could provide more information about the status of customers work. The re-write taking place at the moment will enable us to provide better information more quickly for answering most customer progress enquiries. More information is given in a separate news item.Energy Index
February 15, 2008
Media coverage of energy issues demands that it is at or at least near the top of everybody's agenda.
At Alpha Rowen this is truer than for most given the high proportion of our cost base which is directly related to energy consumption. This has seen us being hit very hard for many years as energy costs increase and there seems to be no chance of that altering.
To try to reduce our energy consumption we have entered a scheme set up between Accelerate and Pro Enviro to initially measure our carbon footprint and then work to reduce it year on year. After 12 months we were able to show some reasonable improvements and a 10% reduction in our Carbon Index. The next set of results will be out in the autumn and we are currently working on several projects to try to make further reductions.