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Martin Haswell
Lean Success Story

DRIVING EFFICIENCY IN BUSINESS

APPLIED
LEAN
CONSULTING

PROJECT DETAILS

Martin Haswell

"Furniture by Martin" (Martin Haswell) specialise in manufacturing exclusive bespoke furniture for discerning and select design outlets.

The Martin brand was founded in 2007 and has successfully achieved a reputation for consistently delivering high quality and uncompromising reliability.

With a history of designing, manufacturing and installing a variety of bespoke fittings, for both residential and commercial clients incl. bedrooms, boot rooms, media units, wine rooms, wardrobes, reception rooms etc, our team have done it all.

  • Client

Martin Haswell – “Furniture by Martin”.

  • Category

Lean success story

  • Date

May ’22 – Oct ’23

  • Location

Amersham, Bucks

Martin Haswell – Lean success story

ALC was introduced to Martin Haswell, MD of Furniture by Martin (FBM) through the Bucks Business First Lean Masterclass sessions. Following this, Martin approached ALC to ask for help to implement Lean thinking into his business and Tim Scurlock has been working with FBM for the past 18 months.

Furniture by Martin manufacture and supply bespoke furniture to kitchen suppliers and commercial businesses in London and the Home Counties from their facility near Amersham.  However, on-time delivery to customers was inconsistent and they were struggling to meet the demand for their high quality kitchen assemblies. 

Martin asked Tim for help and during that time, they have:

  • Mapped the Order receipt to Delivery process to reduce ambiguity and improve the quality of information going into the Works Order
  • Introduced defined quality control checks into all stages of production to reduce errors
  • Developed a skills matrix through the business team to assess and review strengths and development opportunities
  • Established metrics through the business to assess performance and a daily stand-up meeting to review job status and work priorities
  • Overseen the complete re-organisation of the site around Lean principles; creating flow from Goods In, through production to despatch

Outcomes

  • OTIF (On-Time-In-Full) delivery to customers is now approaching 100%
  • Quality standards are the highest ever and remedial work is almost zero
  • Visual Management boards monitor the status of all jobs both in the office and the workshop
  • FBM are poised and ready for growth with confidence they can deliver

Lean was pioneered by Toyota and the methods to implement Lean have been adapted and applied universally across manufacturing and service businesses since.

Key to the success at FBM was the realisation that without an effective and timely Works Order process, the Manufacturing processes couldn’t operate efficiently. 

Commenting on their achievements, Tim added…
“It’s been very rewarding to coach Martin, Chris and the FBM team in how to implement Lean.  The progress they’ve made in 18 months has been astonishing and having put in place the foundations for sustainable growth, they are now able to take on new business confident in their ability to deliver right-first-time, on time, every time.”

The FBM team conduct a line-balancing exercise to share work across the team

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