Manufacturing Case Study · Dufaylite Developments Ltd
8 Hours of Planning a Day, Down to Under 2
How a paper products manufacturer cut their daily production planning workload by over 75% — and recovered nearly £40k in people costs annually.
The headline
Dufaylite’s operations team was burning 8 hours every morning on manual production planning. We built an Ai system that does it in under 2 — freeing 6 hours a day and recovering £30,000–£37,500 a year in people costs.
The Problem: Planning Consumed Their Mornings
Dufaylite manufactures paper products. Every morning, their operations team spent 8 hours gathering order data, checking capacity, resolving scheduling conflicts, and communicating priorities across the factory floor. This was before they could actually start production. The process was manual, error-prone, and left the team exhausted and reactive.
The Solution: Ai-Driven Production Planning
We built an Ai system that takes incoming orders, current capacity, and constraints, then generates an optimised production schedule in real-time. The system runs overnight and updates throughout the day, removing the need for manual daily planning.
The Results: From 8 Hours to Under 2
- Planning time: From 8 hrs/day to under 2 hrs/day
- Annual people cost recovered: £20,000–£25,000 (from time freed)
- Decision quality improvement: £10,000–£12,500 (from better scheduling)
- Total annual impact: £30,000–£37,500
The Breakdown
| Area | Before | After | Annual value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Production planning time | 8 hrs/day | Under 2 hrs/day | £20,000–£25,000 |
| Operational upside (fewer changeovers, fewer bottlenecks) | Reactive, ad-hoc | Real-time optimised | £10,000–£12,500 |
| Total Annual Recovery | £30,000–£37,500 |
Planning time savings come from the mornings the operations team no longer burns on manual scheduling. Operational upside comes from better sequencing — fewer changeovers, fewer bottlenecks, fewer delays.
“I genuinely didn’t realise how much we were losing until Ashley showed us the numbers.”Dufaylite Developments Ltd, Paper Products Manufacturing
Your Operation
Is your operation leaving money on the table?
Same-day or next-day availability. On-site or virtual. Full refund if no Ai opportunity is found.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
How much did this save Dufaylite?
£30,000–£37,500 a year — £20,000–£25,000 from recovered people time and £10,000–£12,500 from better sequencing (fewer changeovers, fewer delays).
How long did the project take?
Up and live in 30 days as a Quick Win Sprint, then rolled into a Programme for ongoing improvements.
Did this require a new ERP or big systems change?
No. The Ai sits on top of their existing order and capacity data. No new ERP, no disruption to production.
What kind of planning is it good for?
Any daily or weekly scheduling cycle where capacity, orders, and constraints have to be balanced by hand — paper, packaging, printing, fabrication, food, and similar.
Could this work for our factory?
If planning is eating half a day or more for a member of your team, it is almost certainly a candidate. A Business Walk will quantify it in £ before you commit to anything.