Colbond Nonwovens:

tighter focus & increased reliability lead to higher profitability

Colbond Nonwovens, leading global producer of high-performance nonwovens for industrial applications, was confronted not only with mounting international competition in a demanding market, but also with extra production costs and lost margins due to spinning failures and excessive downtime. The continuous improvement of its product quality, consistency and production efficiency were becoming ever-more urgent factors for maintaining its supplier status and prime position. Colbond asked ARV Group to assist with a fact-based analysis of its quality chain, and to help translate the results into an effective implementation program.

“Zoom in”

The first step was to bring transparency to the product-application quality chain and to pinpoint the causes related to client complaints & demands. Subsequently, ARV and Colbond ‘zoomed in’ on the quality control during the production process and the associated quality losses that were leading to extra production costs and lost margins, and on the quality requirements for raw materials and related non-conformities.

These insights allowed Colbond to substantially increase the reproducibility of the production process, and to reduce fluctuations. Company-wide knowledge was tapped in to in order to generate a package of most-effective solutions, consisting of:

• Improving spin technology (subsequently improving product quality, reducing downtime and eliminating waste),
• Implementing reliable inspection techniques to monitor production on-line, and continuous quality control,
• Improving production reliability and quality (eliminating downtime and waste),
• Improving margins by optimizing the product to fulfill requested performance.

Step-by-step

Improvements were effected in a step-by-step program, implemented by the internal organization itself with only coordinative and dedicated R&D support.

Involving the right people from various disciplines (production, sales & marketing, R&D, purchasing and maintenance) led to acceptance of the chosen solutions and to improved collaboration across the chain. This improved collaboration in particular enabled the Colbond organization to ensure low-cost product quality and product-performance assurance, and to retain and expand its customer base.

Marcel Werner, Manufacturing Manager at Colbond, Arnhem: "This was our second successful collaboration with ARV Group, and one that once again showed significant business results. The structured approach taken proved to be a solid based for an effective and successful implementation program. ARV Group proved capable of building up good cooperation with all the people involved, including our local production organization, and of supporting them in the implementation of the improvement package."