Door Industry Journal - Spring 2021

Domestic Garage Doors Also online at: www.dijonline.co.uk THE door industry journal spring 2021 46 Garador Implements 5S Projects to Improve Production Environment As part of a drive to improve their production facility, Garador have invested heavily in renewing and replacing the machinery inside the factory and have also looked for ways to improve the production environment and working processes more generally, with a 5S programme. Put simply, 5S is a workplace organisation method developed in Japan that helps to reduce manufacturing waste and optimise productivity. There are five phases: Sort, set in order, shine, standardise and sustain. The overarching theme is to decrease the amount of waste that is produced in the production plant, all the while trying to optimise how things are produced thereby increasing productivity. One of the first steps in Garador’s 5S journey has been to educate the workforce, helping them to understand how 5S works and what it does. Garador’s Managing Director Neil Discombe comments: “Firstly we setup an in-house training programme back in 2019 to get everyone up to speed on the 5S & the Lean Manufacturing System. It’s not just about implementing 5S measures in the workplace, but about helping everyone to understand why we are doing it too. We really wanted to get everyone moving in the same direction.” After a few months the progress from the training programme was visible. The staff were more aware of 5S and how it could be used to improve the way Garador manufactures its garage doors. But this was only the first step and there was much more to do. Garage doors are systematically manufactured on a large scale at Garador’s production plant in Yeovil, with raw materials entering at one end of the factory and finished products leaving at the other end. The plant is organised into key areas, each of which performs an important part of the production process, from cold-pressing sheets of steel to painting the garage doors. So it has been crucial to get each area organised and optimised. On the framing lines, for example, there are clearly defined positions for every screw, fixing, washer and component so optimal throughput is achieved. You can often hear Garador’s Lean Leader David Burton using the phrase “A place for everything and everything in its place” in a team briefing or a quick chat with one of the production operatives. It all forms part of the mantra to create and maintain a clean, organised environment for production and David Burton is really enthusiastic about the positives of this approach. David comments: “We’ve spent a lot of time optimising different parts of the factory where people are working to make a component for the door. Whether that’s a locking mechanism, a spring assembly or a sheet of steel for the infill, we make sure that an area is well-organised and optimised for the task that is being performed there.” The practicalities of such an approach might involve marking out the floor, re-organising Stock panels being stored at Garador.