JKE has launched an analysis project with Nicholaisen to identify opportunities to improve production efficiency and to develop an investment plan.

- When we expect to increase turnover, production must of course be able to keep up, which is why we have commissioned Nicholaisen to carry out a comprehensive analysis of our factory and to forecast where, when and how we should make investments in production in the future. The project has also given us insight into where we can reap the low-hanging fruit in terms of increased efficiency - without major investments," says Mark Dige Høgh, Production Director at JKE.

According to Lukas Barslund, a business analyst in Nicholaisen's innovation and efficiency department, an analysis project helps to qualify the choice of new technology and machinery, so that a company like JKE does not risk investing millions in solutions that do not give the desired output:

- In concrete terms, such a project starts with us installing various sensors on the machines at JKE, in cooperation with OptiPeople, so that we can collect data on the machines' efficiency and examine how well the machines are being used. By linking production efficiency with their sales data and expectations for future product mix and turnover, we start to see when and where in production it might be a challenge to keep up with expected sales, he explains and continues:

- And this results, among other things, in a recommended investment plan for the next five years, in which we have examined precisely at these times what investments in technology and machinery would be appropriate for JKE in terms of increasing capacity with a reasonable return. For us, the massive amount of data, which in this case was over 3.8 million rows, is a good foundation to ensure high validity in our analyses and thereby also minimize the risk in the investments we recommend.

Ongoing optimisations have already paid off

Based on the growth analysis, JKE has already succeeded in reducing overtime by 80 per cent through optimisation, and in reducing paint consumption for processing the majority of the company's products by 30 per cent.

- We work purposefully in the organisation to make continuous improvements and do things smarter, and here the analysis project is a tool for us, which helps to qualify the decisions. At the same time, it is very rewarding to have a sparring partner like Nicholaisen, who thinks all the way around and does not just focus on the individual machine - and we can only conclude that this has already borne fruit, saysMark Dige Høgh in conclusion.

The next step for JKE, in cooperation with Nicholaisen and sister company OptiPeople, is to implement power metering in production to reduce energy consumption, among other things. This is part of the company's goal to reduce a kitchen's total carbon footprint by 50 percent by 2030 compared to 2022, when production is already carbon neutral.