British manufacturer Moores Furniture Group Ltd, who have over 70 years of experience in making kitchens, has partnered with the Supply Chain Sustainability School to demonstrate how the ‘Kaizen’ methodology can be used to minimise both the company’s and their customers’ carbon footprint whilst also demonstrating environmental responsibility.
Through working with Supply Chain Sustainability School, Moores adopted the ‘Kaizen’ method, which is an approach used to analyse current ways of working and create continuous improvement based on the idea that small, ongoing positive changes can reap significant improvements. The Kaizen event focussed on analysing ‘touch points’ from the painted fascias leaving Moores’ Spray Shop through to the assembly and distribution processes. It identified that the process designed to apply a polythene sleeve to door and drawer fascias using an ‘L’ Sealer was causing potential damage to the fascia through catching them on the sealer’s infeed mechanism. Through further analysis it was also realised that there is no significant benefit from the application of the polythene sleeve, as the product is adequately protected against abrasion by an initial protective film already applied to the fascia.
Eliminating this process removed unnecessary production equipment and polythene packaging, resulting in the removal of circa 20 tonnes of single use polythene per annum, complete with the associated environmental impacts for raw materials, manufacture, distribution and recycling operations for both Moores and their customers.
Mark Grainger, Environmental and Quality Systems Manager at Moores comments “Sustainability has played an active role in the Moores brand for the last 30 years and by working with the Supply Chain Sustainability School, we have been able to identify further opportunities to reduce environmental damage. By implementing these changes, we have been able to benefit our customer base as a whole and roadmap the continuation of our sustainability journey. Actively minimising waste is something that all companies should be participating in and there has never been a better time to look into this type of project.”
