Member Article

Potential £30k pa saving from LEAN premises relocation for UK Dentech

Fareham-based dental laboratory, UK Dentech, is looking forward to making potential savings of around £30.000 p.a. as they relocate to a new facility after undertaking LEAN efficiency training delivered by Gosport-based LEAN business specialists, Fedden USP, in conjunction with MIT Skills.

UK Dentech wanted to use the tools and techniques they had acquired from a LEAN Business Improvement Techniques workshop to help them design the layout of the new laboratory. They looked at three areas in particular: the Crown and Bridge process, Denture Workflow and the Ordering process. Using workplace organisation techniques, such as 5S, provided a structured way to re-organise and ‘tidy up’ the processing areas and waste walk activities helped to identify non-value-added activity, which could be eliminated or reduced when deciding on the layout of the new factory.

After the training, UK Dentech’s Works Director, Steve McDonagh, asked all of the delegates to design the layout of the new facility and from all the designs a brainstorming session was arranged and the new layout was agreed by the whole team. Based on the new layout, annual savings are estimated to be around £30,000, which is a conservative estimate as it was felt that once the team had moved into the new premises and introduced other LEAN initiatives into the organisation, savings could be considerably higher.

Steve McDonagh commented: “I was delighted with the support we received from Fedden USP and the delegates from UK Dentech were very keen to learn and responded very well – it has made a real difference to our business.

“Any manufacturer that does not embrace LEAN working techniques is missing out on real opportunities to enhance productivity”.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Colin Bridgman .