Committing to Smarter Craftsmanship for Oak-Framed Buildings
At English Heritage Buildings, craftsmanship has always been at the heart of what we do. For over 30 years, we have combined traditional English framing techniques with modern precision engineering to create bespoke oak-framed buildings across the UK. But true craftsmanship isn’t just about preserving heritage; it’s also about continually refining how we work. Our lean manufacturing journey reflects a simple commitment: to ensure that every building we produce is crafted with the utmost care, efficiency, and consistency, without ever compromising on quality. It’s why we are always improving our manufacturing for even greater precision and value in ways that our customers can see the benefits from.
What Does “Lean Manufacturing” Mean?
In straightforward terms, lean manufacturing means removing unnecessary steps from the production process, including anything that does not enhance the finished oak frame from the customer’s perspective. As a result, we:- Reduce avoidable delays
- Improve workflow
- Eliminate inefficiencies
- Make decisions based on measurable data rather than assumptions
An Opportunity to Learn from Industry Leaders
As part of our commitment to refining our manufacturing process, we undertook specialist lean manufacturing training led by an associate of our Managing Director, Darren Hook. This associate is a highly experienced industry mentor with a background working alongside globally respected manufacturers, including Toyota, which is a widely recognised pioneer of lean production principles. Over this two-day intensive workshop, senior members from across all departments examined every stage of our workflow. The focus was simple: identify any activity that did not directly enhance the value of the finished building for our customers. The workshop concluded with practical exercises, enabling our team to apply lean principles in real-time scenarios before implementing structured improvements across the business.
What We Learned from Our Experience
With the support and guidance of our mentor, we identified several remedies to adopt a leaner manufacturing process. Armed with two state-of-the-art CNC machines, it became apparent that we weren’t making efficient use of either and over time, we had adopted an unnecessarily complex process for machining components simply because we had the technology to do so. After extensively weighing up the minimum machine minutes needed against the maximum capacity that could be reached, we made the bold move to put away our oldest machine and concentrate all activity on our newest, most reliable machine. Transferring to the sole use of our K2i CNC, we were then able to achieve the same product using a simpler and speedier machining pattern. After talking through the manufacturing process, it also became clear that an efficient flow of movement was a huge contributory factor to lean manufacturing. The senior management team in charge of production assessed the flow and rearranged the layout of our site so that it was more aligned with the flow of work in and out of the workshop. As a result, unnecessary movement that interrupted the flow was stopped.Data-Driven Quality Control
As the only oak frame manufacturer in the UK to hold the BM TRADA Q-Mark certification, rigorous quality control is already central to everything we do. Our lean journey reinforced this further. Rather than relying on opinion, we began to operate with a structured, data-led approach. If machinery requires maintenance or production is interrupted, we implement a containment review process to identify:- The root cause
- The corrective action
- Preventative measures moving forward
