YPIE Blog Day Five: Howdens

Sam Ryan, a participant on the Young Professionals Industry Experience, writes about the group’s trip to Howdens Joinery.

Howdens Joinery design and manufacture fitted kitchens, which are distributed to 650 depots in the UK. Its business model sees it supply to depots and ensure good customer service is delivered in a friendly environment, through their small shop front, right through to the builder’s quality of service delivered to the client’s home.

Depots set their own prices where builders can negotiate a trade discount and then charge their client with a price increase. Howdens kitchens are sold fully assembled for the builder to fit.

Impressively, Howdens made a turnover of £1.6 billion in the last three years and  have a a third of the market share of the UK’s market.  One in every three doors sold is made by Howdens.

We learnt that Howdens source worldwide but they pride themselves as local providers, selling in the UK through locating their depots no more than five miles distance from their local builders. They are as close to a franchise as possible, without being a franchise.

Below are some statistics and facts that we learnt about Howdens’ production.

• It has a lean continuous improvement manufacturing plant
• It separates its products through Runners, Repeats, Strangers system
• Full automation from raw material to packaging (1,200 parts per hour / 230 holes drilled in three seconds)
• Investment in automation (SPC Line) identifies when blade needs changed (removes human error/misjudgement
• MD Changed specification over night from 8mm to 4mm (factory now target at 1-2mm)
• H&S from shop floor up, have payment incentives to achieve quality/volume (ownership)
• It has a major focus on recycling, the gain from the energy produced and government give incentives to reduce carbon footprint
• 15 million panels produced yearly
• 10 million dowels an hour are produced for shelving inserts
• Howdens sharpen its own blades to be more cost effective but also buy in new blades which take up to 6 to 8 weeks lead time, in order to keep up with the competition and the industries market development.