Rest Assured Limited

Following the purchase of Rest Assured by Silent Night Holdings in 1998, the company is now part of the UK's largest bed makers. The acquisition brought with it Silent Night's expertise in modern manufacturing along with substantial financial investment.

Background
Since the late 1990's Rest Assured has focused more and more on the manufacture of luxury pocket spring beds.

Learning Challenge
To improve the planning process within the Pocket Springs Production Department  to deliver cost savings and production efficiency.

The OLC Solution
Over a three month period OLC analysed the department's existing production methods and planning activities. This analysis was supplemented with the use of cutting edge software production modelling.

Following this initial investigative analysis, several cost saving opportunities and key recommendations were made to the company's senior managers as to how the planning process and production methods could be improved.

Key Interventions

• The detailed analysis of current planning practices
• An audit of information flows throughout the business
• An analysis of current procedure for capturing production information
• Improvements to the way in which Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) data is calculated, and recommendations as to how it can be improved over the long term
• Analysis and improvement of the department's future CapEx planning
• Recommendations to improve the department's layout and use of available space, plus the use of manpower and labour
• A detailed review of the Departments current purchasing policy
• The development of detailed project plans that considered how all identified improvement opportunities could be implemented over the next 6 months

Benefits
Rest Assured now possess a thorough understanding of their existing production planning methods, production processes and how both of these activities can be greatly improved in the future.

Likewise, this valuable insight has highlighted potential annual cost savings of over £500,000.

Results
"Effective production planning and scheduling is essential for successful implementation of lean manufacturing principles.

OLC have shown that massive savings can be achieved through  adopting the principles of kan ban, Just In Time, Total Production Maintenance and improving supply chain logistics."
Steve Petrovic, Operations Director