Funding helps Thirsk-based manufacturer stand the test of time

Introduction

Imagine you could turn back the clock, for a few more hours. What would you do? Most people in business complain about a lack of time. Each day ends and, whether you’re an employer or employee, there’s still a million more jobs to do. You know the feeling, right? We’ve all been there and Justin Bartlett from Thirsk-based Treske, a family-owned furniture and kitchen manufacturing business, wanted to do something about it.

Managing more efficiently

Treske was founded in 1973 and has seen some great successes over the years, including the Manufacturing Guild Mark, awarded for their excellence in British manufacturing. But as the business has grown in size, there was a need for more complex systems to manage the company efficiently.  The key to this has been to understand and manage Treske’s manufacturing capacity. The business has relied on out of date manual systems to track time, which made it difficult how current manufacturing work was affecting production planning.

The solution that Treske tried was the Manufacturing Growth Programme. Through this 35% grant, Treske were able to invest in a specialist who showed the business how to measure real time in the manufacturing process, through the development of time recording programming and linking this to production scheduling, helping to improve efficiency.

Support for the strategy

Production scheduling and time capture was only one area of many that Treske were addressing. This is when the Y&NY Growth Hub, the central point of contact for business support in York, North Yorkshire and East Riding, stepped in to help. Y&NY Growth Hub know that you don’t need an insight into every single support programme out there (there are hundreds). What you need to know, is what help is available to support your business strategy today. Filtering through every single support programme could take days – time was something Treske didn’t have. But after discussing needs with Y&NY Growth Hub, Treske discovered that the capital funding programme of Let’s Grow could be a great fit for the business strategy.  Let’s Grow enabled Treske to reduce the risk of investing in new equipment through their grant help.

Now, Treske is looking to unveil a brand new CNC machine to help automate the cutting of their wood, all thanks to the funding support from Let’s Grow. Not only will this free up the manufacturing process and add more hours into the day, the machine can also create products of a higher complexity. There will be an opportunity for more designs, which will demonstrate the high quality of Treske and open up new areas of the market.

Ongoing support

There isn’t an overnight fix that covers every single business problem, so Y&NY Growth Hub will remain in touch with Treske, ready to offer further guidance. Treske has already begun to access website development support through the programme Digital Advantage. The funding is providing an e-commerce specialist who is updating the Treske furniture website to enable online purchases. This will simplify the buying process for customers and could lead to increased domestic and international sales. By connecting with so Y&NY Growth Hub will remain in touch with , Justin is getting closer to his goal of becoming the premier quality furniture and kitchen design and manufacturing company.