Case studies

Manufacturing Feeder Pillars for The Capital City

Ritherdon & Co Ltd are very pleased to have begun supplying Transport For London (TfL) with electrical supply enclosures for traffic installations throughout the capital.

These feeder pillars will be used in a variety of situations, from traffic signalling, to pillars for the new cycle hire scheme, which is being introduced in London in good time for the forthcoming Olympic Games.

Ritherdon & Co have worked alongside TfL to ensure that the new feeder pillars (plus several other special enclosure projects) match their specifications, including several extra security features.   And as well as manufacturing the stainless steel enclosures, Ritherdons also fit the electrical components, so that the feeder pillars leave the factory ready to be installed on site.

Supplying to our largest city requires efficient manufacturing and quality systems to ensure short and reliable lead times on a requirement for hundreds of units per year.  Having focussed on this area for many years, Ritherdon & Co are well placed to deliver this kind of performance.

In the lead up to the 2012 Olympics, Ritherdons are proud to be playing a part in the development of the transport network in London at what is a particularly exciting time.

Lean Manufacturing at Ritherdons

Back in the early 1990s Ritherdon & Co began a cultural change programme to move more responsibility for work place improvement towards the teams on the shop floor.  This later became the Lean Improvement Programme, with team leaders being trained in the lean process philosophies to start improving the flow of work through the factory.

5S auditing was introduced to tidy up and de-clutter all work areas (including the offices).  Then, by minimising set-up times, times between operations and many other efficiency measures, production moved from a mass, batch-and-queue system to smaller batches, driven by customer demand.

So successful was our Lean Programme that Ritherdon & Co staff were asked to do several presentations at events run by the Manufacturing Advisory Service in 2008.  MAS have also been filming a follow-up video at Ritherdons which can be viewed here.

There have clearly been many benefits to Ritherdons in developing our new production systems over the last couple of decades.  However, as the lean philosophy is based on the requirements of our customers, it has also made us much more responsive to our customers’ needs and we can give our customers much shorter lead times.

Also we have always been happy to share with other companies what we discovered along the way, so please get in touch if you want to meet up and chat about the lessons we learned about implementing lean processes.

R24 Tall for pre-payment meter boxes

Shortly after we had developed the R24M lid and frame unit, we were asked by Langstane Housing Association in Aberdeen if we could modify it to accommodate a larger, pre-payment gas meter.  This was the state of some of Langstane’s gas meter boxes:

As we design and manufacture all Ritherdon products ourselves, we can make this sort of alteration (as well as creating new products from scratch) very quickly and easily.

So we now have the R24M Tall model to repair floor-mounted, GRP boxes that house the larger pre-payment gas meters, and Langstane seem pleased with the results.

“...the new boxes fit nicely, and are a considerable improvement on what was there before.”

Property Services Manager, Langstane Housing Association

Nottingham City Homes

Nottingham City Homes is responsible for the maintenance of 30,000 homes, many of which have external GRP meter boxes. The boxes are very often a target for vandalism or become damaged through normal use.

Sourcing spares for the wide variety of GRP boxes in use was problematic and the cost of replacing the boxes was prohibitively expensive because utility supplies often needed to be disconnected.

Nottingham identified the range of Ritherdon replacement door and frames, and with our help, composed a list of suitable products based on the sizes of meter boxes used on the estates in and around Nottingham.  See the full story here.

Electricity Metering

For over twenty years Ritherdon & Co have made metal cabinets for electricity metering in the industrial and commercial premises served by several of what were the electricity boards.

Soon after the boards became the regional electricity companies, we were approached by some of our REC customers with a view to fitting the electrical hardware such as bus bars, fuse-holders and test terminal blocks to these cabinets.

The next step towards purchasing completed units was taken when we started to fit the wiring looms as well as the electrical components, and this is now the accepted method of supply for most REC industrial cabinets.

In order to take advantage of our production flexibility and ability to hold finished stock of a wide variety of cabinet types, we were able to offer one REC a weekly call-off system. Under this scheme, specifications for cabinets of varying types and for individual installations are received weekly. We make up the individual requirements, complete with individual fitting instructions, and deliver them within two working days to the depots that will be installing them. For even tighter schedules a same-day collection service is regularly used.

This has now been running for over two years with no missed deliveries. The customer is delighted with the improved service, which gives them increased ordering flexibility at a lower cost than operating from a centralized depot. We feel that the partnership perfectly demonstrates Ritherdons’ emphasis on customer service which results from a combination of flexibility and speed of response with the resources to manage and hold stock to support the operation.