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Eight Stocked Profiles Makes Arches Easier
As part of a wider commitment to make customers’ lives as easy as possible, Premier Arches now stocks eight profile systems at its premises. The...
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UK’s Biggest Fabricator Moves Entire Profile Supply To Liniar
Liniar, the UK PVC-U window profile manufacturer, has successfully commenced serving Safestyle UK. Safestyle is the UK’s largest fabricator of windows and doors.
Safestyle made the commitment to change its supplier in October 2022. Liniar is part of the global Quanex organisation.
The Safestyle team underwent a management change in 2018 and has since been focused on a ‘continuous improvement journey’ across all levels of the company’s operations, including a full review of its supply chain partners.
Prior to the switch, Safestyle carried out a lengthy due diligence process with Liniar to ensure risk mitigation. This included site visits and audits, allowing both parties to be assured of a good cultural fit and partnership.
Liniar proved it has the capacity and forward planning and satisfied Safestyle there would be no compromises necessary to enable the company to maintain volumes of over 4,000 frames per week. Since the start-up in January 2023, Liniar states that its entire customer base has continued to see on time and in-full service levels above 99% every day.
This has been possible thanks to a carefully planned and managed transition between both teams.
Training
Safestyle’s sales team has been trained on Liniar product familiarity; the service team has received on-site training at Safestyle HQ in Barnsley; and the switchover was supported by the Liniar technical team, which were on hand to address any challenges as they arose.
Liniar’s internal approach was key to the success of the switch, with production planning, product design, stock control, warehousing, transport, customer services, sales and marketing working together with the technical team on the ground to ensure nothing was missed and the Liniar operation continued as usual for all its other customers.
Investment
One of the main factors in the decision to switch to Liniar was the company’s continued investment in capacity through plant and machinery, explains Phil Taylor, Safestyle’s procurement director. “Safestyle has ambitious growth plans over the next few years, so we need partners that are able to support that growth. The relationship with Liniar has been developed over a long period of time and after such a smooth start-up we’re delighted with our decision.”
Communication
Andy Cadman, Safestyle’s group technical manager, was responsible for the profile changeover internally. He adds: “The communication and interaction we’ve had with the whole Liniar team has been first class from the start. Any change of this nature obviously posed a huge potential risk to our business, yet we’ve been reassured at every stage – the two companies have worked seamlessly together to make it happen.
“The feedback from our production and quality teams has been overwhelmingly positive and the change has been managed well. We have noticed significant improvements in product quality and expect this will have a positive impact both in our manufacturing and field-based operations. This is particularly evident with the Liniar patented bubble gasket system which provides both performance and longevity.
”Our fitters are also sending positive feedback and are impressed with both the quality and the ease of installing Liniar products.”
Sustainability
Another key factor in Safestyle’s decision is Liniar’s long-standing and ongoing sustainability credentials. Taylor says: “The recycling and environmental focus at Liniar is of great importance to Safestyle as we continue on our own ESG journey – it’s rapidly become one of our key criteria when choosing supply chain partners.”
Martin Thurley, group managing director adds: “The relationships formed across both our teams have proved that we are synchronised in terms of successfully and seamlessly managing such a large-scale project. We look forward to a mutually beneficial long-term partnership.”
Picture: Martin Thurley, Liniar group managing director.
Article written by Cathryn Ellis
14th April 2023