Anglo European Helps Sash UK To Streamline Manufacturing

Nick Lilburn, Managing Director at Sash UK explains: “Steel reinforcement is often the part of the window that’s out of sight, out of mind, but we understood that it was an important part of our quality strategy to get our steel reinforcement supply chain working in the most efficient way possible.

“We used to buy 6 metre lengths of steel and cut them to length for each window in-house at Sash UK. It was an inefficient process, especially when you factor in that we produce more than 70,000 windows annually. When we started looking at how we could introduce lean manufacturing techniques to streamline our operations, we talked to Anglo.”

Anglo European is the reinforcement specialist for the window industry and recently launched a 10-year warranty for its fully optimised steel reinforcement, offering peace of mind for fabricators.

Nick continues: “James looks after our account and he worked with us from the start, to create a process that worked for everyone. This included buying in pre-cut steel in key sizes that could be used in our manufacturing, straight off the shelf. We also hold optimum stock levels of main running lengths, pallet quantities and lower running lengths.

“This process has been tweaked and refined by James, who has been on-site, talking to our team in our state-of-the-art factory, to help deliver efficiencies, and altering orders and delivery schedules so that we have ‘just-in-time’ stock replenishment.

“With the trend continuing for bigger window sizes and coloured frames, reinforcement really adds value and longevity to windows for homeowners, which is why it’s such an important part of the fabrication process.

“Working with Anglo is working really well for us. We hardly ever use a steel saw, we have reduced our operation costs and seen a big increase in productivity.”