Over the years, the central Jutland company Nicholaisen has had several major projects in Sweden and Norway, and now the company has just completed another major project abroad for Bollebygds Emballage, which is looking to double its turnover next year. For this reason, it has allied itself with Nicholaisen, which advises the company on investments in new technology and machinery as well as optimisations so that production can keep up with the sharp increase in demand.

Over the years, Nicholaisen in Hørning has developed from being a machine supplier to now offering a wide range of services, with factory and production analyses in particular being a growing business area both in Denmark and in the other Scandinavian countries - and here the Swedish company Bollebygds Emballage, which produces pallets and other packaging for car manufacturers among others, is one of the latest additions to the list of analysis projects abroad.

Here, Nicholaisen has just completed a major factory analysis, in which Bollebygds Emballage's capacity needs now and in the future have been mapped out. This will form the basis for the packaging company, which is looking at almost doubling its turnover next year due to large deliveries in the order book, to realise its planned growth through efficiency improvements and investments in new technology.

- We originally looked at growing by up to 70 per cent over a five-year period, and to realise growth of that magnitude will obviously require production to be streamlined, modernised and scaled up. For this reason, we chose to ally ourselves with Nicholaisen, who, in addition to collecting data on production and drawing up an investment plan, has also helped us rethink our entire approach to production in order to increase efficiency, and this has led, among other things, to measures such as increasing the volume of standard pallets, says CEO of Bollebygds Emballage, Ove Johansson, and adds:

- Since the start of the project in October, it has turned out that we even have to prepare for even more massive growth than previously assumed, and already next year the order books show that we will almost double our turnover. Therefore, we have suddenly become much busier to get the plans in place and start investing heavily - and this has also meant that Nicholaisen has become a very important sparring partner in the process, advising us soberly on possible solutions, and thanks to the cooperation with them we have the confidence to make the investments despite the fast process.

Nicholaisen has a specialist department dedicated exclusively to analysis projects, and according to project manager Kenneth Bech Sørensen, there is currently growing interest from Scandinavian manufacturing companies such as Bollebygds Emballage, who want a database-driven basis for investing in machinery and technology, focusing not just on the individual machine but on the entire production:

- We see that more Danish and foreign companies are realising the value of collecting data on the entire production or factory before they invest to realise their growth ambitions. And Bollebygds Emballage is a good example of a company that is suddenly faced with a huge growth that cannot be realised with the current production set-up, and therefore comes to us for an overview of their production and a review of possible solutions from different suppliers, so that they invest wisely, he says and adds:

- Such cooperation takes place in a very practical way by using OptiCloud, which is a software solution from our sister company OptiPeople, to collect data on, among other things, uptime and stop causes. On this basis, we then analyse the efficiency of the entire production or factory - and not just a single machine, and then present various possible solutions that can raise efficiency and capacity, which should thus help to move a company like Bollebygds Emballage from from being a carpentry production to being a modern, automated factory.

The analysis project itself has just been completed and, based on the investment plan, Bollebygds Emballage has already invested in a pallet production line and a cross-cut saw, which Nicholaisen will deliver in March next year and September this year respectively.