Herga Lean efforts being supported by Klime-Ezee.

Here at Herga we are always looking to improve on our business performance, specifically to increase productivity, improve quality and reduce lead times.

After some initial research of different manufacturing method, one kept appearing, 2 Second Lean. The method is more about ‘thinking lean’ rather than ‘becoming lean’.

After looking on different social media sites for companies using this method, one UK Company stood out and that was Klime-Ezee. We contacted the Managing Director, Ashley and he referred us to a book written by Paul Akers; ‘2 Second Lean’. Klime-Ezee had already embarked on a journey to become a ‘Lean Thinking’ manufacturing company with only one goal in mind, which was to serve the customer, whatever it takes, by growing our people.

This is exactly what Herga were also looking at doing, having already taken on some ideas like 5S and TIM WOODS we wanted to see how there could be further improvement from someone whom had already learnt from the process steps.

Ashley Bailey Managing Director of Klime-Ezee, kindly invited Herga technology Ltd to their site to see how they implemented their 2 Second Lean Manufacturing techniques and provided support to share ideas and alternative ways of working.

Ashley J Bailey says “We teach and train our people every day to build a culture of respect, learning and self-improvement; everyone at Klime-Ezee has one simple but important task… to fix what bugs them, everyday!”

The techniques offered by 2 Second Lean and the change in culture will only help strengthen our drive, productivity and quality of products in the future.

Aligning these techniques in to our already successful Gate process shown below will give our customers and staff the confidence that product development and manufacturing in the UK is taken very seriously.

The process with Lean thinking in mind encourages staff from the whole site to take part in improvements, reviews and illuminate risk to the company and our customers.

Paul K Edwards – Head of Engineering and Quality says “I was really surprised at how Ashley and his team are so dedicated to the Lean methods and implementation of them. Herga have taken away many ideas from the visit and will look at how we can adopt them into our culture and manufacturing processes. These are really simple and effective tools and can’t wait to use them; in fact as soon as I came back I changed my desk from Sit to stand-up to help my health and my lean effectiveness.”

Karen Docking – Production Engineer has worked for Herga for 25 years and had the following to say about the visit “I really enjoyed our visit to Ash & his team on Wednesday. It has been one thing to read the books, but having actually seeing a lean area & listen to Ash, has really impacted on me & I have many more ideas of how we continue on our journey (crawl), as my understanding & appreciation for the lean world has been clarified by our visit to Ash & his staff this week.”  

Edward Charlson – Operations Director says;

 "An experience that however far you think you have come in business, a visit like the one to Klime-Ezee can with such elements of site wide involvement and simplicity make you think once again on how much further you can go"

Klime-Ezee is a manufacturing business located in Alfreton, Derbyshire, providing a range of mobile steps, access equipment and order picking trollies. Klime-Ezee is a ‘Lean Thinking’ company; and is passionate about improving how we work every day; we strive towards creating a world class company. Find out more about Klime-Ezee by visiting their website http://www.klime-ezee.com/ 

Come and see Herga and our Lean Processes in the future!