Poole-based custom rubber moulding specialists DP Seals has invested in additional factory space and equipment to meet increased demand for its services. The company has spent almost £400,000 expanding capacity by some 100% in all areas - tool manufacture, production throughput and product cleaning.

"The factory layout had evolved over the last two decades to meet short-term needs and was becoming cramped and inefficient", notes technical director Andrew Piper. "When we won our largest ever aerospace order the time had come to do make significant changes."

The first step was to acquire an additional factory unit. This was completely gutted and fitted out as a mini DP Seals with its own material preparation area, tools store, six presses and product cleaning facilities. Networking is key to the company?s internal information flow: the new unit is equipped with its own local network linked back to the main plant. And, opening the unit created new management opportunities within the company.

A new mezzanine floor has been installed in the main unit, enabling the company to improve product flow by moving a lot of stuff that isn't needed every day off the shop floor. More production space was released by the installation of two vertical Kardex carousels for material management and tool delivery: simply keying a job number into the carousel delivers the correct material and tool.

DP Seals is a world leader in cryogenic product cleaning: freezing the flash makes it brittle and easier to remove. To meet the increased demand for cleaning created by more and bigger presses, the company has doubled its cryogenic cleaning capacity - and quadrupled the size of its liquid nitrogen tank - as well as adding more conventional cleaning equipment.

DP Seals is a leading global supplier of high precision custom seals, gaskets and mouldings that now play a key role in a huge variety of industrial and commercial applications.