2017-2018: The Seating Matters Lean Transformation

At the end of 2015, and in the last 8 years, the business had been growing significantly but at the same time there was growing stress on the manufacturing operation. They have had shortages in key components and increases in the lead time for chair production. They needed to increase the staff significantly without time for training them. The stock levels of raw components and part-finished goods within the factory began to increase dramatically, and that led to the need for more storage space. At the same time as stock levels grew, the quality control staff were noticing more and more defects in the final product. Re-work levels of these defected parts were growing and so too were the production costs and indeed the stress levels of those working in the company.