YPIE Tour Blog Day Seven: Howdens Joinery

Pavandeep Chahal, Quality Assurance Manager of Parker Knoll, discusses the YPIE group’s trip to Howdens Joinery.

We all arrived at Howdens Joinery in the morning and were greeted by Ellie Mason, Creative Designer. The day started with a brief overview on what Howdens Joinery do, followed by a tour of the manufacturing facility that the company operates. In addition, we also got the opportunity to visit a local depot and gain an insight into how new designs are innovated.

During our visit to Howdens Joinery, we covered the following:

• Overview of how Howdens Joinery had established themselves within the sector it operates within. In addition, we also learnt the importance of their mission statement has on its daily operations
• Learnt how each depot is in control of their own price points. Howdens Joinery currently have over 600 depots nationwide with a version of increasing that figure to 900
• The importance of material scouring, ensuring that the relationship it positive with, as its suppliers relationship key for operating a successful business
• An overview of how Howdens Joinery generate new ideas by conducting trend analysis and visiting various shows worldwide

The visit highlighted that Howdens Joinery operate a far bigger manufacturing facility than we had originally thought. I would definitely say that Howdens fit well within the sector it operates, as it offers customers the highest quality of products at the best price.