The company was experiencing numerous problems across its whole range of manufacturing activities, and a strategy was evolved to deal with these in a structured manner. It was decided to approach the basic clay problems first. The bought in clay from RSA contained very high percentages of impurities (as illustrated). Also the technical specification of the clay resulted in high losses from crazing due to clay / glaze mismatch.

Regardless of what clay was in use in the factory, the existing methods of processing were no longer suitable, old mixers and systems were now ineffective.