Engineers who Deliver
Manufacturing Excellence
We are an experienced consultancy who identify and deliver engineering projects that will transform your business to be the best in manufacturing.
Our diverse expertise includes significant work in the pharma, biopharma, and medical devices industries, ensuring one-stop specialised turnkey and standard solutions support across various sectors.
Our industry experience, excellent people, and a powerful set of engineering and business tools, will ensure that your investments are targeted to give the greatest returns.
Growth
Grow your business by targetting your investment to give the highest returns
Efficiency
Deliver cost savings by aligning and optimising your manufacturing activities to give the greatest value
Profit
See your profits increase by 30% to 50%, as a result of cost savings and growth
Who we are
We are engineers who value chartership and support all our employees who would like to achieve this recognition.
Expertise
We have unrivalled expertise in the design and optimisation of production lines. We specialise in food and pharmaceuticals.
Proven Methods
Using simulation modelling and excellence frameworks, we have developed a powerful set of engineering and business tools that pinpoint the best investment opportunities.
Values
Our company is built on the principles of integrity, simplicity, and clarity. These core values shape our decisions, actions, and interactions with both our clients and each other.
- Integrity: We honour our commitments to ourselves and our clients whilst being ethical, transparent and trustworthy.
- Simplicity: We deliver simple, effective solutions that prioritise efficiency and accessibility for ourselves and our clients.
- Clarity: We use clear communication and actions which lead ourselves and our clients to visible success.
Employee Ownership Trust
J P Hildreth has been established as an Employee Ownership Trust (EOT). This means that the business is owned by an independent trust which is tasked to act in the best interest of the employees.
There are many incredible benefits of this type of structure for both our employees and our customers. A few of the most significant employee benefits are listed below (subject to contract conditions):
- The long-term future and independence of JPH is secure.
- The structure demands an active employee representation and involvement through to the operating board.
- All employees are beneficiaries of the trust and business profits are re-invested and/or shared equitably among the employees (part of profit share payments are made free from income tax).
Ultimately, all of us employed here at J P Hildreth have an equitable stake in the future and success of the business. If this sounds like something you would love to be a part of then we would like to hear from you.
In November 2024 JPH won ‘EO Rising Star of the Year’ in the prestigious UK Employee Ownership Awards!
The awards, hosted by the eoa and sponsored by Howden, recognise businesses and individuals who drive effective EO practices and empower employee owners to unlock Great EO impacts.
Find out more about being employee owned here: Proudly Employee Owned
What we do
We identify and deliver major manufacturing investments for the most innovative companies, creating the very best manufacturing environments.
We work with our clients to develop the business case for strategic capital investment.
Our unique software tools help our clients to identify opportunities and dramatically cut lead time for project approval and execution.
We look across operations, production planning, costing and capital investment, bringing to light opportunities for both cost savings and increased profits.
We take ownership of your investment and make sure that it is delivered smoothly from beginning to end.
We stake our reputation on delivering the business benefits, making sure that you get what you paid for.
Our capabilities include project management, engineering design, pharma validation and performance improvement.
We turn data into actionable, intelligent proposals that challenge the status quo and move you closer to manufacturing excellence.
We benchmark against your industry peers to ensure that we identify the optimum performance parameters for you.
And finally, we continue to monitor project deliverables and develop personnel to make sure that the change is embedded.
Manufacturing Excellence
We take responsibility for delivering major capital engineering and manufacturing improvement projects.
Capacity
Optimising production planning; new production lines for new products; and removing constraints, are typical capacity expansion projects that we deliver.
Cost
Rationalising production capacity; automation; increasing yield and reducing waste through intelligent design and planning, are typical examples of cost-saving projects that we deliver.
Quality
Working in food and pharma means that all our projects have the highest quality standards. We qualify and validate all our own projects.
Compliance
Our knowledge of pharma and food regulations together with health and safety means that we are often asked to assess, recommend and deliver compliance projects.
Support
Factory infrastructure replacement, and streamlining support services, are projects that we deliver to mitigate risk and improve business efficiency to move closer to our goal of manufacturing excellence.
Operational Excellence
Smart Factory is on our doorstep and it’s not going away anytime soon. It provides the opportunity to use modern technology to make data centred decisions. Here at JPH we have a plethora of tools at our disposal to assist you in the Smart Factory journey.
MXL
MXL Smart Factory software is a flexible tool which enables you to model your factory from end to end, create live or static digital twins, scenario plan and more. Using MXL, we can make comparative costs and benefits across equipment, labour and energy, therefore facilitating investment decisions.
Data Collection
Rationalising production capacity; automation; increasing yield and reducing waste through intelligent design and planning, are typical examples of cost-saving projects that we deliver.
Data Mapping
A key step in data management. We work with you to ensure that data flows correctly throughout your organisation by looking at Data Architecture and Database Design.
Smart Factory Assessment
What is your Smart Factory IQ? We use our expertise to assess your current status as a Smart Factory. By performing technical reviews and gap analyses, we start to build a picture of the scope of works.
Workshop
We speak to your employees, ranging from line workers to senior management, about their daily challenges and what their vision of a Smart Factory would encompass. We also relay the message that the Smart Factory is a tool not a threat.
Road Map Development
Presenting our findings and working with you to build a clear timeline for the Smart Factory journey – including a Cost/Benefit analysis.
Pharmaceutical Excellence
We provide one-stop, expert support to the pharma, biopharma and medical devices industries, delivering both turnkey and standard solutions.
Target-Driven Delivery Ethic
We offer a professional and well-practiced service, resulting in complete solutions that fulfil the specific requirements of all our clients, whatever the sector, whatever the challenge.
One Stop, Full Product Lifecycle Coverage
Our portfolio of services covers all stages of the product lifecycle and is delivered by a team of specialists including chartered engineers, quality professionals, and accredited project managers with extensive sector knowledge and pharma experience.
Quality Driven
We apply the principles of QMS by applying validation, qualification, compliance and GMP. We combine this with collaboration and knowledge sharing to appreciably improve overall quality resulting in more efficient safe regulated improved products and processes.
Covering Start-up to Fully Established Enterprises
We apply the principles of QMS by applying validation, qualification, compliance and GMP. We combine this with collaboration and knowledge sharing to appreciably improve overall quality resulting in more efficient safe regulated improved products and processes.
Culture
We pride ourselves in forming long-lasting relationships as well as the results we achieve. We welcome the opportunity to explore building new partnerships with organisations such as yours.
We love solving challenging technical problems in complex manufacturing environments. From fast moving consumer goods, to high tech pharmaceutical production our team relish the challenge of identifying and delivering major investments in innovative companies.
Case Study: The Pharmaceutical Expansion Plan and Re-Plan
Our pharmaceutical client needed to double tablet production – but the disruption caused by manufacturer delays would need some expert support…
JPH’s work on this particular project began in 2016. Our client – a UK-based pharmaceutical manufacturer – needed to double their output of tablets and planned to do this by duplicating the equipment and procedures they already had in place. The main features of this equipment were a drum blender and hoist, and a tablet compression machine – with all of the installation, compliance and safety standards that those intricately-calibrated devices require.
This type of installation requires detailed analysis, quality assurance and tight project management: every key part must be manufactured, tested and installed to the highest standards, as there is no room for error. Lacking the resources to dedicate to this project themselves, they approached us to take on delivery, and all that would entail.
Despite the challenges that the supplier delays presented, we were able to double tablet production to all of the vital industry and safety standards required. With monthly stakeholder meetings, and weekly project team meetings with the client as well, we were able to give them the reassurance and confidence they needed that the project would be delivered – with all the due diligence and close supplier management that we brought to the project as well.
That successful production has continued since this project concluded in 2017 – and our relationship with that client has continued as well, as we deliver larger and even more complex production line projects, and act on their behalf as liaison with machine manufacturers.
Case Study: From Covid Crisis to Long-Term Partnership
On the ground when our clients couldn’t be: when Covid19 restricted all travel from Australia, we stepped in to be their eyes, ears and voice with suppliers…
This JPH client is a major manufacturer of biscuits and confectionery in Australia. They source their production machinery from suppliers in Europe – and when Covid19 locked down the Australian borders for many months, this became a serious issue for them. Prepandemic, our client would travel to be on the ground at their supplier sites in Europe, personally overseeing build quality, testing and sign off on the finished product ready to ship back home to Australia. That presence is vital for our clients to be satisfied of the standard and quality of the build, for the size of the investment they’re making.
So when travel became out of the question in 2020, this posed a significant risk. They could no longer be sure that the machines they’d ordered were being built to those time, spec and quality requirements, because they simply could not be there to check. They needed someone in Europe who could act as their trusted proxy: specialists who were nearby, who could travel within the restrictions, with the same level of knowledge and understanding about the necessary quality standards.
That’s when they reached out to JP Hildreth, and we assigned them their own case manager: a single point of contact who could co-ordinate visits to their European suppliers in a day, check on quality, and report back to them comprehensively on progress – as good as them being there themselves. And although this was initially to be a Covid-related solution, we’ve continued to work on our client’s behalf here in Europe, even since the lifting of those travel restrictions: we are their experts on hand in the northern hemisphere.
Case Study: The Packing Production Puzzle
When demand outstrips supply, there are several paths to take. This is how we solved the Packing Production Line Puzzle…
Our client is a major manufacturer, and a new customer preference in packaging was becoming a trend they couldn’t ignore. Sales of their product sold in packets, rather than traditional boxes, were far outstripping the others; and they needed to boost the numbers of packet products to meet that demand. Our client knew they would need to make changes within their production lines to address this, along with some other issues to solve. Here’s a breakdown in summary of the puzzle in front of them:
- Product A: High demand for packets over boxes, with obsolete box machinery. Unsuitable cases requiring unnecessary repackaging.
- Product B: Lower sales than product A and distributed only in the UK produced with outdated packet machinery in need of replacement.
- Increasing packet demand with no way to change the existing production line pack mix to meet that demand.
- No room to install any new equipment alongside the current lines.
These were the problems to solve. With no room for extra packing lines, the client planned to replace Product A’s line with new machinery that would both solve the case problem, and increase packet production capabilities. They also proposed a replacement to Product B’s line machinery at the same time – so two full-scale line replacements, with a notional budget of £5million to achieve them.
From the earliest stage of knowing a change was needed, JPH were able to offer objective, expert support for decision-making, followed by a fully managed installation service. Our clients could have 100% confidence that their major investment would return the greatest benefit to them, and that their new equipment was installed to all industry standards – without needing to have any of that expertise in-house.
Clients
We are privileged to work with the most forward-thinking global manufacturing companies.
Our reputation for putting clients first and always looking for opportunities to improve manufacturing performance means that most of our work is repeat business from people who trust us to do the right thing.
