Delegates learn from visits to world class furniture makers

An Operations Management course for furniture manufacturers run this spring by the Worshipful Company of Furniture Makers and supported by ukfirst, the government/industry initiative to help the UK furniture industry achieve world class performance, attracted a capacity attendance and was widely rated an outstanding success. 

Delegates particularly praised the visits to two companies which have implemented lean manufacturing and are running world class operations, office furniture maker Herman Miller and bedding maker Relyon.  Geoff Thompson, production director of Sutcliffe Furniture comments:  "These two visits were superb with our hosts openly sharing their experiences and inspiring us with ideas to take away and implement in our own factories.  Nothing beats seeing for yourself in real life what other companies have done to improve the efficiency of their businesses." 

This is the first year that ukfirst has participated in the conference and David Burbidge OBE, chairman of Burbidge & Son and Master of the Worshipful Company at the time of the conference, says:  "It was a ground breaking move for the Worshipful Company to link with ukfirst and it was a resounding success.  Including visits to manufacturing sites and moving away from a purely classroom based event is definitely the way forward which we shall be building on for future conferences."

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