Remanufacturing

1
(No Transcript)
2
Remanufacturing

• D Bloomfield PhD
• Sales Marketing Operations Director

3
Summary a social enterprise can remanufacture
furniture

• Introduction
• Lessons learned
• Social vs. commercial
• Manufacturing - 6s
• Supply chain issues
• Marketing
• NPI
• Conclusions

4
Introduction Context

• Award winning charity and social enterprise
• Goal minimise land filling of redundant office
  furniture
• Wembley facility processes 400T furniture / month
• Why remanufacturing?
• Use chipboard - otherwise recycled
• Project run from Wembley HQ

5
(No Transcript)
6
Lessons Learned

• Marketing - improve research hone strategy
• Funding - it always takes longer than expected
• Communications
• General - ensure robust inter-departmental
• Documentation - improve NPI change control
• Expertise
• Design - require holistic / experienced talent
• Manufacturing expertise - vital
• Quality - embed from the start
• Selling imperfect goods its tricky

software
7
Marketing Strategy

• Market Research insufficient
• Issues
• Bespoke vs. standard
• Products
• Markets
• Route to market
• Price
• Positioning of imperfect products
• Consequence
• Lack of focus
• Costs escalate while details refined

8
Marketing Strategy Products

• Office Furniture market 750m
• Remanufactured size?
• Resizing - grow?
• Caution if product is too out of kilter with
  Competition Fashion specific available market lt
  total available market e.g.
• TAM Desks 300m
• SAM slab sided desks is much smaller

9
Strategy?

• Any business is good business?
• If designers sales encourage bespoke work
• Then production
• Continuously prototyping - making specials
• Never learn to mass produce
• Low high volume production are different
• Key Low set up time
• High volume cycle time
• Mind set, skill set, process equipment
• To cover high fixed costs have an environmental
  impact a high volume strategy is the solution

10
Marketing Image

• Original look feel
• Not distinctive
• Losing impact in plethora of green brands
• Make over required
• New brand
• Logo
• Web etc
• Practical issues with roll out
• feedback is very positive

11
Funding

• Manufacturing is expensive!
• Require appropriate plant and equipment
• Not cheap
• Meagre funding ? non ideal equipment selection
• Require finance to support operations during
  development typically longer than expected
• ROI commercial and social very different

12
Communications

• Manufacturing requires
• New culture
• New skills production scheduling, buying etc
• Communicating effectively between customer
  - sales - marketing - design - manufacturing -
  not trivial
• NPI and change control must be properly
  documented

Recommend integrated software package
13
Expertise

• Common fallacy can cook can run a restaurant
• Costly running a manufacturing enterprise without
  manufacturing expertise reinvent the wheel
• Dont assume designers will be familiar with
  manufacturing
• Design Issues
• Confusion
• bespoke vs. standard
• prototyping vs. production
• Definition of standard given all RM required
  trimming

14
Quality

• Furniture aesthetics key
• All raw materials used ? blemishes likely
• Without huge sophistication impossible to define
  a quality standard
• Quality procedures not initially embedded
• Most SMEs struggles with quantitative continuous
  improvement
• insufficient return to resource the expertise
• senior management unfamiliar with the concepts
• GW have overcome initial basic quality issues
  now the driver is continuous improvement

15
(No Transcript)
16
Selling Imperfect Goods

• Furniture aesthetics key
• Selling typically requires positives to be
  highlighted (not negatives)
• Quality is a function of price!
• When and how should defects be acknowledged?
• Turn defects into positives?
• Use branding mark
• Enable buyers to show green credentials
• First, need to improve control quality

17
Commercial vs. Not For Profit
18
Manufacturing Six Sigma
World Class
19
Supply Chain
20
Supply Chain

• Business viability depends ? stable supply chain

21
Evolving Markets green will grow

• Green markets
• Developing ? forecasting difficult
• Susceptible to overriding economic climate
• Segmentation young are green but have less money
• To address wider market develop
• Value for money proposition
• Feel good factor
• Issues
• Warranty
• Specifications
• Green Wash

22
Trends

• Green sustainability awareness interest
  growing
• Carbon consideration much furniture in UK made
  abroad
• Ethical CSR awareness interest growing
• Primary suppliers taking back remanufacturing

BUT THE RECESSION
23
NPIits hard work at the best of times

• Established commercial company
• Good NPI procedures
• Known market
• 80-90 failure

• Young company
• Evolving NPI procedures
• Evolving market
• ? failure

24
Furniture Remanufacturingit works should grow

• Short term
• Infrastructure not in place issue availability
  of funds cost of funds
• Infrastructure in place
• Provide value for money
• Focus
• Quality
• Solutions - make life easy
• Simple products
• Green and CSR features minimal value
• Longer term carbon cost important.