[New] KANE & University of Hertfordshire Lean boosts productivity

Recently voted Hertfordshire’s Best Business and winner of a Queen’s Award for Innovation, KANE is the UK’s largest family business making portable analysers & test equipment helping heating engineers worldwide keep our homes & workplaces safe and warm.

KANE designs and delivers essential instruments with award winning service from its 25,000 sq ft home in Welwyn Garden City. 2 years ago KANE asked University of Hertfordshire to help introduce Lean – a tried and tested method to boost productivity first used by Toyota Japan over 70 years ago. UH’s team led by Marzia Milan and Thomas Baker explained how previously unfamiliar techniques such as KANBAN, KAIZAN, 1 piece flow, 5 Ys and Root Cause Analysis would actually work in KANE.

The outcome was transformational – KANE dramatically improved delivery times and product quality, freeing capacity to grow sales.

It also reduced stock levels, freeing cash to reinvest in product and sales development.

It’s also created cultural change – the daily walk around quickly identifies output and quality problems impacting colleagues and, since the first discipline of Lean is to respect your team, they soon see how quickly issues are addressed with daily feedback.

For KANE, Lean is a winner –customers only see upside and colleagues become converts.

As Jonathan Kane, CEO, said: “Lean is great – motivated colleagues, few problems, happier customers and double the capacity to grow sales. Thanks to UH, Lean has transformed our business.” www.kane.co.uk