Like every structural steel fabricator around the world, Mifflin Construction was faced with a decision: Do we grow with the industry and attack new markets and customers, or do we remain as is—comfortable with the current levels of business activity?

Take a successful company like Mifflin Construction in Leominster, Herefordshire, UK. Founded in 1951 by Ernest Mifflin, the firm focused on construction to suit the local industry—agriculture. Essentially, building of sheds and barns to support the local farmers supplied the foundation for future growth. It was only logical that the first non-agricultural building ever supplied by Mifflin was in fact for themselves in their hometown of Leominster. In fact the current site of Mifflin Construction was once the town football pitch (soccer field), the original factory being built in 1961.

The company progressed on a slow and steady basis. Fueled by a good reputation and focusing on its’ strengths, Mifflin Construction began slowly growing. Expanding on their success in the Agricultural market, Mifflin turned to Light Industrial Structures. In addition to structural steel, they also supplied roof and wall cladding, doors, windows and builders works as part of a complete construction package.

Then the economy turned. By 1987, the agricultural market was becoming depressed, and the demand for lighter structures was well saturated. Like all entrepreneurs, Mifflin looked to other markets for growth, and adjusted the scope of their business. They began to focus all of the fabrication of the structural steel for industrial buildings, supplementing the construction with roof and wall cladding.

As the Mifflin family took stock of their situation, they identified an immediate need to improve shop production methods for structural steel since this would now become the core of the business. They purchased a used Peddinghaus saw and drill line, and began fabricating steel with a real sense of purpose.

Alan Mifflin, current Managing Director, had joined the firm and gained practical experience running the Peddinghaus saw/drill system on the night shift. He identified that updating the machine electronics and controller were essential to improve efficiency, and initiated a retrofit process that carried an immediate effect.

This machinery automation breathed new life into the company and sustained growth throughout the next decade. Various other pieces of equipment were installed which complemented the Peddinghaus system. A blast cleaning machine, painting updates, material handling, and machines for processing fittings were equipment purchases that helped raise production levels of the firm.

The business now focused on fabricating steelwork rather than providing “packages”.

Focused on continued improvement, Mifflin have undertaken ten significant production/building enhancements to their existing site in the past decade.

Three main players remained for Mifflin at this time— Peddinghaus, Acecad detailing/production software and Procon CNC software.

Rethink Your System— Don’t Just Retool

As Mifflin entered the 21st century, the two brothers closely examined the business. Where are they now, and where were they going? It’s the dilemma we described earlier that all structural entrepreneurs endure.

“I knew we had to improve— not just our equipment, or our software—but everything,” advised Alan, “We literally needed to rethink our system, not just retool”.

You have heard of the “Quest for Knowledge” or the “Search for Enlightenment”; at Mifflin Construction, the theme was “Focus on Improvement”. The Mifflins examined every aspect of their business—not just drilling holes or sawing steel, but painting, blast cleaning, and most importantly, material handling. They discovered that moving beams via a crane or fork trucks was a real problem, which was costing them literally, thousands of UK pounds.

In addition to the shop, the Mifflins turned their attention other areas of business—areas not normally addressed when you are thinking of improving shop production. They examined office structure, engineering practices, estimating methods, detailing software, financial software, transport, and project management.

Not only did they look inward, they also looked outward and visited both fabricators and suppliers in the UK, Europe, and USA.

“We knew the areas to attack, and the focus was to improve them all—which we knew would take us to the next level in the UK steel construction industry”.

If You’re Going to Read Anything, Read This

During their investigation to improve, perhaps the most surprising issue was how one area transformed into the next, and morphed into a completely new method. Once they explored new IT alternatives, they learned more about hardware—and software—enhancements that not only helped estimating and production, but also improved communication.

In investigating drilling, blast cleaning, and painting of structural steel, they learned about the benefits of effective material handling of beams and accompanying fittings. It also opened their eyes to the benefit of automated burning and coping of steel sections.

Exploring overall improvement led them to better understand the role of vendors and suppliers in the supply chain of products and services. Everything comes at a price, but sometimes the price is absolutely worth the investment.

Effective Material Handling Saves Crane Costs and Labor

The first area to improve in the shop was the material flow. From their own analysis and shop visits to other steel fabricators, they learned of the benefits of intersecting cross transfer lines running between conveyors and machines. “We had to minimize beam handling—this only costs you money if you handle a beam more than twice (offloading from a stock truck and then loading the finished fabricated beam). The Peddinghaus design with roller feed measuring, provides full flexibility to move beams, columns, and fitting trays.”

At Mifflin, beams are off-loaded in the yard onto the Peddinghaus cross transfer system. The carriages on this system pick up each beam individually, and move them to the proper conveyor line—for drilling, coping, blasting, etc. No wasted processing, no wasted movement. The beams pass from the yard into the building through a small opening in the wall—saving valuable interior shop space for actual fabrication work.

Once the beams pass through the required machine, the Peddinghaus BDL 1250 drill, for example, the cross transfers again intersect so the beams move effortlessly from one area to another. Machine operators double as material handlers, passing beams from one machine station to another, for the next operation.

Move Beams Without Cranes

With the rigid specification for painting of fabricated sections, Mifflin developed a “bogey” system of fabricated beam supports, which operate on rails in the concrete floor. This system not only conveys the sections to the painting area, but also transports the fittings required by the welders for each section. The main advantage of the system is providing the real “flow” to the shop.

The beam is identified as it enters the shop:

• If holes are needed, it is conveyed to the nine spindle Peddinghaus BDL 1250/9 drilling machine. The BDL 1250 in conjunction with the procon software translates the Acecad program via DSTV, and is ready to produce the holes, and any required part identification.
• If no holes are needed, it can proceed via a second roller conveyor and transfer system to the blast clean system and then to the fitters and welders, if so required.
• If coping is needed, the beams are transferred via the Peddinghaus system to the ABCM 1250 where automated burning of the section occurs. Again, all parts are programmed, and the operator monitors the burning operation.
  
  “Honestly, the ABCM 1250 coper did not interest me at first,” advised Alan, “but having achieved a better understanding of the machines capabilities we undertook further analysis ,and the time saved in the welding bay and our small works section produced a quick payback against the actual cost of the machine.
• Once the section is coped and blast cleaned, it is transported to the welders and fitters who are able to perform their work on the bogey system. The completely fabricated beam is then transported to the paint booth area, and then loaded sequentially to the waiting truck or lorry.

Result: Substantial cost saving by no crane investment in main bay in addition to saving the crane maintenance costs; redundant fork lift trucks to sell and saving the associated maintenance; labour savings of up to four persons.

In the Analysis of Peddinghaus versus other equipment suppliers, Mifflin cited these reasons for choosing Peddinghaus:

1. Mifflin was an existing customer, and knew Peddinghaus’ capabilities
2. The machines were strong and robust, with a long life expectancy
3. When visiting machine installations, Alan always spoke to the individual machine operators. The Peddinghaus machine operators were always more enthusiastic and happy to discuss their machine—the competitors were not.
4. The established Peddinghaus Roller Feed System was more productive than any carriage, gripper system.

The Shop Runs Smoothly, But What Else is Significant?

As described, Mifflin genuinely analyzed their entire operation, and identified many areas for improvement. Here’s a brief look at what they did, and then a startling analysis of how the numbers (profit and loss) pan out. Communication Improved—It’s always nice to have meetings and chats, but what was a significant factor in improving Mifflin corporate communication? Easy, it was software and IT improvement. Mifflin invested in a new software package that best suited the structural fabrication business, but also featured strong CRM (Customer Relations Management) data. This powerful package enables each project to be identified, and then accessed by every pertinent member of the Mifflin team. This can be from estimators, project managers, production people, purchasing, detailers, finance, engineers, and management. Through the internet, personnel at remote location (even at home) know exactly the status of every project. Everyone knows at a glance the status of the project or the challenges it faces.

Result: Less project errors, less wasted time with useless meetings; more focus on the final project.

Build Partnerships with Your Vendors—Alan Mifflin

pointed to a scattering of angles and channel laying in the yard and says, “That’s my current inventory.” How does he do that?

Mifflin has a strong working relationship with their steel stocking center.

Once a project is secure, it is sequenced by Mifflin for erection, and the sequence is passed to the stocking center. The strength is best depicted by the fact that every day, trucks arrive in early morning with steel for the day’s shop production. (Of course, this is identified from the project as dictated when it is needed on site—no wasted effort or stored steel). The truck drivers even have a security key to access the yard to drop off trailers.

Partnerships are a very important part of the way Mifflins operate. Since the early ’90s Mifflins have partnered with their Steel Stockist and have been operating just in time deliveries since. They partner with their cold rolled supplier and paint supplier and their main Site Teams. The partnership with Peddinghaus on service and parts was finally taken to new heights when Mifflins entrusted then with Installation of a whole new production system. This is only a few of the industry partnerships that not only maintain good relations, but lend themselves to profitability.

Result: Significant funds saved on inventory investment; no personnel required to sort, process, and handle, stock inventory in the yard. Effective partnerships save you money.

Here’s the Bottom Line

After totally redesigning the system, adding to the building structure, and totally redesigning the entire shop layout, the bottom line results were fascinating:

1. Mifflin budgeted on a 15% growth—it actually is now running at 40% on one shift only.
2. They have not added a single person to their staff to achieve this efficiency
3. In fact, through attrition, their shop workforce was decreased by 1/3— before it consisted of 30 workers, it is now 20.
4. Mifflin regularly produces high rise and multi-story structures, including the 16 story Leeds Plaza and the Cardiff Pellet Street project with 23 stories.

Keys to Mifflin Success

Alan and Kevin Mifflin point to many issues, but good entrepreneurs have a solid handle on the business. Here are their thoughts:

• Good Communication is essential for survival, and the IT age is geared for progress
• Meticulously plan and stage each project—time spent up front saves money on the shop floor; document management is essential
• Be involved in every phase of the business; whether it’s sales, estimating, purchasing, manufacturing, erection, welding, or transport—know what’s going on
• Your people are important to your success; they make a real difference, choose employees with business savvy
• Set a goal and work toward achieving it—Mifflin’s goal was to retool their system so they could play in the Premier League of steel
construction.

It is only fitting that Mifflin’s goal was to play in the Premier League of steel construction.

After all, their original building is located on a former soccer field. It was only a matter of time before they were scoring goals regularly. Judging by Mifflin’s new operational level, it appears they leveled the playing field with the competition.