A Kitchen Manufacturer

In a bold move to relaunch their brand, our kitchen manufacturer client wanted to obtain a thorough insight into their complex retail operation to ensure it would continue to deliver great customer experience, consistently and efficiently, in line with the reputation they had built for themselves over their years in business.

Our process improvement consultants were asked to review the procedures from customer contact and design in the showroom, through to delivery and subsequent despatch of the kitchen elements to the customers’ homes – covering trade and retail customers.

They also wanted to discover how various in-store roles spent their time and identify any obstacles that prevented enhancement of the customer experience – whether this was due to systems, paperwork, process design or how roles fitted together to deliver the overall brand experience.

We used a range of workstudy methods across stores from big to small, including retail-only units in city suburbs, large trade-led warehouse operations and everything in between.

What did we find?

The client had not carried out a wide-ranging review of their operations in some time and so we uncovered a range of quick-win and medium-term efficiency opportunities:

• A brand relaunch could address in-store trademark projections and communicate the unique selling points that matter to customers in a more effective way. Many showrooms had spotted the opportunity to let customers know more about their USPs. It was identified that marketing support was required in order to make this more consistent
• Working back up the supply chain with distribution could lead to new ways of managing deliveries that would significantly reduce time taken and double handling
• Legacy systems were a challenge that was making ordering and trade sales more time-consuming
• Colleagues were spending longer than expected to go the extra mile for customers

How did it help?

In addition to efficiency insights, our productivity consultants mapped out the inhouse processes and outlined the time it took to complete each step. This created a tool to identify where the most time-consuming stages were, enabling our client to focus their attention and make the biggest impact. Process maps provide a clear visualisation and help others understand the impact of moving round, changing and even eliminating process steps. It also allows for multiple desktop changes to be made and assessed before physical changes are implemented in-store.

With a successful brand relaunch and a plan of quick-win and bigger efficiency changes, our kitchen manufacturer is set to create even more happy home kitchens.

How can we help you?

Would you benefit from a business process improvement? We all know we can do things a bit better, but having an actionable plan of where you can make process improvements will save you time, energy and money. It is an investment that will make a huge impact on your bottom line.

Speak to our productivity experts and discover how we can help your business thrive? Get in touch today.