Flexiform Business Furniture - NVQ awards

Flexiform Business Furniture are a long established company within the furniture industry with over 40 years of manufacturing experience, supply high quality Office furniture to both the Public and Private sector.  Flexiform have long been investors in people, continually supporting and encouraging staff development and progress within the company. 20 Flexiform employees from across the company (both office and manufacturing staff) have completed a 12 month Six Sigma training course, gaining an NVQ award.

“Employee development is a critical part of our Business plan, By investing in our employees, ultimately we all benefit– staff morale is improved, their core skills improve. In return, we create a highly skilled, motivated workforce, ultimately leading to high staff retention, creating a solid foundation for growth”. Michael Etherington – Production Manager

“The commitment of staff to improve at Flexiform and the support provided by management has been refreshing.  All of the learners on the programme embraced the skills of continuous improvement and proved that small changes really can make a big difference!”
Course instructor Stuart Smith Business Improvement Techniques Trainer, Skills Training UK.

“Staff from Flexiform have shown their commitment to providing high quality, timely and value for money storage and office furniture solutions by completing the Business Improvement Techniques qualification delivered by Skills Training UK.  Through this training, the staff have learnt the skills of continuous improvement and applied them in the workplace to bring about Quality, Cost and Delivery benefits.  As a result of their hard work, each candidate has achieved the Level 2 NVQ and VRQ in Business Improvement Techniques accredited by EAL.

Staff from all shifts and office staff were represented in the course spanning a 12-month period.  Tools such as Cause/Effect, Workplace Organisation and Process Mapping has enabled the successful identification, measurement and improvement of the already good quality work Flexiform deliver.

The projects applied by the staff at Flexiform followed the DMAIC – Six Sigma approach, a tried and tested approach to continuous improvement.  Each group applied their new knowledge to 3 workplace project including more efficient floor space to manage stock, improving the movement of WIP to reduce the risk of damage or need for re-work, reducing the time taken to perform maintenance on machinery to reduce downtime.  The teams also introduced a staff maintained, 5S Workplace Organisation procedure to ensure that equipment was always at hand when it was required.

All these projects have enabled Flexiform to enhance their flexibility to supply high-quality office furniture products to customers.  They are able to focus more on the Value Added that their customers desire and less on the Non-Value Added work that gets in the way of this” Stuart Smith Business Improvement Techniques Trainer, Skills Training UK.