A leading North East outdoor furniture manufacturer has benefited from a range of support from both Scaleup North East and Supply Chain North East to help scale and streamline the business.

Marmax Products have recently seen a surge in demand, due to a lifestyle change by consumers towards more outdoor socialising at home. The business is now looking to modernise its product range and efficiently manufacture new furniture ranges, ensuring it maintains a competitive advantage in this developing market.

Scaleup Partner, Tony Brooks began working with David Johnson, Marmax General Manager. Tony explains:

“After our first meeting David and I agreed that developing a Shared Strategic Plan would be of huge benefit. This would be useful to explain to the Board what David’s vision was. Once approved by the Board the plan would be to share with his employees.

“The Shared Strategic Plan covered every aspect of the business; David went into detail in every area. This allowed David the opportunity to meet with team and to get them onboard with the plan and to set the next years expectations broken down by challenge per month to keep everything on track and raise any early signs if the plan needed closer attention. Every team member embraced this and knew what the company was trying to achieve for the next 12 months as a minimum.

“During my intervention with David, we discussed the manufacturing facility and I saw an opportunity to introduce our very experienced Supply Chain team to get involved in this area and introduced Jim Barr to meet with David and this has been another piece of very valuable work for David and his team.

Through Jim Barr, Supply Chain Advisor, a 12hr intensive assist intervention took place this provided awareness on the tools and techniques of business improvement, and performance management. This learning was then put into practice through the development of a dynamic Production tracker visual board and a spreadsheet system to capture and present operational performance by teams and individual operators. Dave Johnson, Marmax Products General Manager said:

“Marmax is in a transition period, working towards the creation of a continuous improvement culture. Jim has helped our operational team to develop the tools and practices to effectively manage and improve the results from our production processes.  The team has greater confidence to identify the problems and take immediate action to improve the efficiency of everything we do on the shop floor.”

Jim added:

“It’s been fantastic working with a team who have been fully engaged and committed to improving the management of their operational processes and developing the systems to help them do this effectively.” 

If you are interested in joining Scaleup North East register your interest here

For more information on Supply Chain North East click here

RTC North is delivering Scaleup North East in conjunction with the North East Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP). The programme is part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). It is aimed at supporting North East-based businesses that can demonstrate both hunger and the potential to achieve high levels of growth.

Supply Chain North East brings together four key partners to work with over 800 businesses through to 2021, supporting them to identify opportunities in new and existing markets. An integral part of the North East Strategic Economic Plan, that has a vision to create 100,000 more and better jobs between 2014 and 2024., Supply Chain North East is delivered across the region by RTC North, Generator, North East Automotive Alliance (NEAA) and North East Process Industry Cluster (NEPIC).