Lakeland

Lakeland are specialists in creative kitchenware and innovative home products and reach their customers through mail order, the web and their national network of retail stores. Product is supplied from their 150,000 sq. ft. in-house Distribution Centre in Kendal where one of the key challenges is to maintain the very high service standards as the business continues to grow. Part of that challenge required Lakeland to review its working practices which began with an operational performance review to measure the scope for improvement and to identify specific process improvement opportunities.

Their requirement to improve performance and reduce costs demanded an open and collaborative approach. Gary Marshall, Director of Operations at Lakeland Limited sees performance improvement as an essential part of Lakeland’s growth strategy. Our brief was simply to work with the Lakeland team to identify the key areas for operational improvement and to develop a performance management system. The focus was then on a thorough and detailed work measurement programme to create a set of standard data. This was followed by development of an in-house performance reporting system to report individual and team performances across the entire operation.

A number of new processes were installed almost straight away and have been delivering benefits ever since. Karen Bateson, Lakeland IT analyst, explains ‘we wanted a comprehensive system that would report performances in all areas in a format that we could all work with. We found that developing our own system was the best option. She added ‘until you give managers information in a useful form they won’t ask the right questions.’ Gary Marshall adds: ‘I was delighted with the outcome – the brief was delivered on time and in full and the way the consultants integrated with the whole of the Lakeland team and kept everyone informed was exceptional.

The Lakeland management team are now getting into their stride with performance management. As Mail Order Operations Manager, Mike Gannon says: 'The process itself makes you more organised, we now look at rostering much more closely and the introduction of new stock movement cages has been the most fundamental of all changes for Mail Order.’

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