Background
Wakefield-based Dearnleys has been in business since 1927. Today, it’s one of the country’s leading designers, manufacturers and installers of blinds, curtains and solar shading for the commercial and public sectors.
The challenge
The company operates in a highly competitive market, so maintaining efficient manufacturing is paramount to the team’s continued success.
Dearnleys has two locations and was looking to bring the operational side from its Manchester site to its Wakefield site, while also streamlining processes and increasing efficiencies. The company has a proud history of safeguarding jobs, so having navigated the pandemic without making any redundancies, they wanted to stay profitable and protect the business by introducing lean manufacturing processes.
The solution
Through our Innovation programme, Dearnleys secured £1,100 in funding towards setting up an improvement project with lean manufacturing expert Paul Cook. In this case, Dearnley’s innovation was centered around the implementation of new processes.
Paul helped the company’s leadership team explore processes, job costing and product pricing, in particular ensuring new machinery and systems were being used to their full potential. The project also identified cultural changes that needed to be made as a result of the process transformation.
The Innovation programme also gives companies access to our Leadership programme, run by Leeds Beckett University. Dearnleys’ Financial Controller, Operations Manager and Managing Director all took part, with their learnings underpinning the project work with Paul.
The impact
Introducing new lean manufacturing processes was particularly impactful for the SME as it’s created new efficiencies, saving time and money, with efficiencies targeted at a 10% cost improvement together with safeguarding five entry-level jobs. It now plans to recruit for two more. Leaders within the different areas of the business have also strengthened their skills, enabling them to implement the necessary operational and cultural changes.
“The support we’ve received has allowed us to focus on areas of the business that have had the biggest impact. Paul Cook has been instrumental in providing the expertise needed to help our business to not just grow, but become more efficient in both time and money.” Sue Howram, Financial Controller
“The new techniques and ways of thinking I learned on the Leadership programme have been of immense value in a world where the workplace has changed so much. The modules, together with the invaluable support from Paul Cook, have allowed us to now map a new operations process and to put in place a new manufacturing dashboard that has increased our efficiencies. We simply wouldn’t have been able to make the progress we’ve made so far (and hope to make going forward) without the support of Business Boost and Paul.” Kevin Hill, Managing Director
Learn more about our Innovation programme
If you have a business based in West Yorkshire and are interested in working with our team of Innovation Managers, express your interest in our programme here.