A medical manufacturing firm in Marlborough has received a boost in productivity, potentially worth £2m.

It has completed a project with the Manufacturing Advisory Service, the Government manufacturing troubleshooters.

Machine downtime at First Water in Marlborough has been reduced by 75 per cent and as a result the company, which specialises in products for professional modern day wounds, burn care and first aid, can now handle 30 per cent more orders, worth up to £2m a year.

Over the past two years, First Water, which employs 60 people, has launched a range of new products as a result of investment in research and development, and by working in close partnership with blue chip medical companies.

While this expansion was great news for the business as a whole, this growth in product variety has presented a real challenge to the company, as it was creating more products than ever before but with the same staff and equipment in place to handle the diversity.

Chris Love, production manager of First Water, recognised the need to look at the production line to see where improvements could be made to meet increasing demand from customers.

"It was vital that we looked at improving the efficiency of our production lines in terms of timing so that we could maintain excellent customer service, and also grow the business," he said.

"Having called upon MAS specialist Chris Eldridge, we identified opportunities for improvement and spent time training the production staff and educating them on tools and techniques that cut down on time wasted."

"The work we have done with the South West MAS has been fantastic.

"It has given us greater agility, allowing us to increase capacity while simultaneously ensuring that we are able to continue to meet the needs of our current customer base.

"I can't recommend them enough."

Chris Eldridge said: "We introduced the team at First Water to techniques used by global manufacturers to improve changeover times on production lines.

"To bring this to life, we took a video of an effective changeover to use as the basis for a detailed analysis of First Water's existing methodology.