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Description
STARCO Beli Manastir d.o.o. was founded in 2002 in the Beli Manastir, Croatia. STARCO BM is the only manufacturer of the steel wheels in Croatia and one of the few in Europe.
Currently, STARCO is experiencing steady growing demand for special purpose wheels but is not able to deliver what market demands despite working in 4 shifts year after year. To answer to this demand, STARCO must improve its productivity, increase its production capacity, reduce operational costs, decrease the consumption of raw materials and energy per unit of product and adapt its product portfolio to the market requirements in terms of quality, price, volumes, and environmental standards. This is achieved through investing in production infrastructure, manufacturing equipment and tools, and leaning the whole production process. This project is going to help STARCO to become the leading lean and green wheel manufacturer in the European and global markets.
This investment will lead to implementation of new technologies and will increase the competitiveness of the Company and its resistance to crises. It will significantly increase Company’s working capacity, together with its revenues and profit. New equipment will have larger efficiency and capacity which will enable the company to increase its much needed working volume. Tho Company will also move to much greener technology which will improve environment in the factory and in surrounding area.
Summary of project results
The challenges project aimed to address were:
i) Decreased availability of labor in the local area as young people move away in search of more fulfilling and challenging employment opportunities.
i) Increasing pressure to remain competitive in the marketplace with old technology requiring heavy manual labor, and the use of outdated material technologies.
ii) Developing the company to become a more sustainable operation, to become resilient for the future, and to improve the performance of the company towards its environmental and social impacts.
iii) Improving the safety and working environment for the employees
iv) Interact with and stimulate the local community.
The company has already managed to design, test and certify a lighter weight wheel, requiring less steel, less energy to produce and with a significantly higher productivity than an equivalent wheel in the old manufacturing process. Also, the company has implemented innovative green technology for removing paint from wheels and tools. The result of this is that the company has already switched off its incinerator, reducing direct emissions into the environment, the consumption of gas, and reducing the yearly amount of waste from the process from an estimated 50T to less than 5T per year. Together with the project partners the company has also launched a digital platform for sustainable collaboration and clustering together with local and international potential partners Reinventing the wheel - KENDA Europe Specialty.
Immediate benefits are for the safety and working environment of the employees using air cleaning extraction systems and providing more natural light into the factory (also reducing the need for lighting energy). Furthermore, the company has already improved significantly the working conditions for employees in the painting area through the automation of the process.
Summary of bilateral results
The project partnership overall was a success. The partner Eupolis Grupa d.o.o. supported significantly with the development of the overall project concept and implementation of the digital platform and clustering approach. The partner IDN provided training and development materials for the Karakuri method to be used and taught in the factory.