Marble 4 Life - Brook Corporate Developments

Marble 4 Life
15 employees, £600k turnover, based in Bradford
“My brother and I are passionate about
the business, but sometimes you can get
too close. Having an organisation like
MAS to guide us has been a terrific help.
We decided to follow Mike’s advice and
invested a six figure sum to purchase the
machine and Mike helped us to source
an appropriate manufacturer”.
Marble 4 Life started out life in a small
factory in Bradford supplying and
installing its worktops nationwide to a
range of customers including kitchen
showrooms, bars and end users. Rapid
expansion followed and it soon became
apparent that the business needed more
floor space to allow it to grow.
Amjad Hussein
Company Secretary
Background
Company Profile
Founded four years ago, Marble 4 Life is a
family business, headed up by Amjad and
Zahir Hussain, two brothers who
recognised a niche for quality granite
worktops whilst working with their father in
his fireplace business, and branched out on
their own.
Key Achievements
As a result of two 10 day
improvement projects, the company
has achieved the following significant
improvements:
• Manufacturing throughput and
throughput/m2 has increased by
15%.
• A 5% reduction in scrap and
defects has been achieved.
The company moved to its current site
last year, and has continued to grow
rapidly, but identified that some of its
customers’ requirements were regularly
not being satisfied, which was costing
potential sales. A CNC machine would
be able to provide the features
increasingly being required by the
marketplace, but the brothers wanted
some independent guidance tin checking
the viability of their ideas before investing
a 6 figure sum.
• Labour costs have reduced by 5%.
• A number of new clients have been
won as a result of building
additional features to their product .
• Turnover has increased by £100k
per annum.
• Gross Value Addded (GVA) has
increased by £30k.
• A new factory layout has been
established to optimise floor space.
Making it Happen
Through a referral made by Business Link
Yorkshire, MAS specialist Mike Brook from
Brook Corporate Developments visited the
firm’s new 14,000 sq ft factory and carried
out a manufacturing review which
highlighted the future requirements of the
business and identified potential areas of
improvement to its manufacturing
operation.
This confirmed that the brothers would
gain additional capability, business and
turnover by purchasing an automated
machine to mill recessed drainers into the
worktops to drain liquids (latest trends are
towards this rather than utilising an inset
sink).
This would also boost the
throughput capability of the business,
reduce the cost of quality, and increase
productivity, reducing percentage labour
costs.
Mike then undertook a manufacturing
improvement project with the company to
assist with machine selection, confirming
the cost effectiveness of the purchase.
He then helped the brothers to establish a
suitable factory layout to optimise usage of
the floor space with manufacturing flow
processes which involved minimum
handling and non value added activity in
the new set-up.
The installation of the machine and the
training of the operators were managed
with a minimum of disruption, and Mike
then worked with the business to develop
and improve individual standard operations
to operate and maintain the machine. He
also developed skills matrixes for the
operatives, ensuring that the business got
the maximum benefit from using the
investment in the most cost effective
manner.
Marble 4 Life is now successfully operating
from the new factory and has also invested
in the state-of-the-art machinery, which
allows them to provide additional features
in their products to capitalise on latest
trends in contemporary kitchen and bar
design, thereby gaining additional sales.
The new machine has also reduced
levels of scrap and reworked items,
and enabled the additional business
gained to be handled by the existing
team – increasing productivity,
reducing percentage labour costs, and
increasing manufacturing throughput.
What the team had to
say….
“Although it is early days, we are
already feeling the benefits of having
more space and the new machine
which enables us to offer our
customers an in-house specialist
service.”
Zahir Hussein
Managing Director