Operations and quality improvement · UK construction product manufacturers and suppliers
The same problems keep coming back.
Euan Pallister works alongside your team to find where recurring faults start. That is usually a different stage, and often a different department, from where they are noticed. Then he helps you fix them at source.
Free. Two hours. No obligation. On site or on Teams.
Does this sound like your week?
Most businesses with this problem are not badly run, and the people in them are not careless. The problems come back because nobody can see the whole path a job takes, so each department fixes its own part and the same fault reappears further along.
- The same problems come back, even though the team is working hard and has tried to stop them.
- Too much still reaches your desk. You are the one deciding what happens next, on things you should not have to touch.
- The same customer complaints return, and you are apologising for something that was supposed to be sorted.
- The profit you expected on a job is not there at the end, and nobody can explain exactly where it went.
The 12 places margin leaks → Estimate what rework costs you →
What your rework log sees
- Remakes that cost a delivery
- Return visits that were booked
- Credit notes raised
The visible line
What it usually misses
- Errors caught in the office before dispatch
- Fitters fixing things on site, unrecorded
- Client changes absorbed instead of priced
- Supplier errors never charged back
- Work delivered but never invoiced
- Senior people’s time spent firefighting
How he works
How the work runs
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Observe
Go and look.
Euan walks the floor, follows live jobs, reads whatever records exist and asks the people who remember the rest.
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Trace
Follow the work through.
Each recurring problem is traced to where it starts and where it should have been caught: usually different places, often different departments.
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Prioritise
Decide what to tackle first.
Some fixes cost more than the problem they solve. Euan sets out what he found and what he would tackle first. You decide the order.
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Fix and hold
Help get it underway.
Euan works with the people who have to live with the change, and stays with it until it has had time to hold.
Why Euan
Twenty-five years in the trade, from the shop floor to the site survey
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Through Curavest, currently
The problem
A UK manufacturer and supplier asked Curavest to find out why the same problems kept returning when none of the explanations added up.
What Euan did
Euan mapped the route stock actually took from arrival to despatch, not the route the layout assumed.
The result
The layout has been reversed so that goods move one way through the building.
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In a previous role, before Curavest
The problem
An assembly department had become the bottleneck, and the obvious answer was to add people to it.
What Euan did
Euan diagnosed the department at the level of the work rather than the official process, found the real constraint, changed the process around it and stayed with it until the improvement held.
The result
Output doubled within six months, with no additional investment.
Who we help
UK construction product manufacturers and suppliers
Roughly £2m–£50m turnover. Businesses that manufacture, businesses that buy in and resell, and businesses that do both. It applies whether or not you also install.
- Construction product manufacturing
- Doors, ironmongery and hardware
- Joinery and cabinetry
- Healthcare and laboratory furniture
- Fire safety products
- Offsite and modular manufacturing
- Specialist distribution and wholesale supply
- Shopfitting and specialist fit-out
Services
Five ways we work, and where each one starts
- Rework Cost Diagnostic What repeat problems cost you, by cause, and where each one starts.
- Stopping Repeat Problems Work alongside your team to remove the causes, and check the change held.
- Supplier Quality Review A joint review with a supplier who keeps getting it wrong, and with your own order.
- ISO 9001 Readiness Pass the audit as a by-product of running the business well.
- Fractional Quality Lead Senior quality leadership a few days a month.
Our consultants
Euan leads the operational work
Euan does the work inside the business. Karl and Alex bring specialist capability he draws on where an engagement needs it.
Built on ISO 9001 principles, so it stands up to audit
Alex is a certified ISO 9001 Lead Auditor. We use AI and our own quality platform, Doctilla, to speed up the analysis and keep progress visible, and you never need to buy software to work with us.
Bring one problem that keeps coming back.
Two free hours with Euan on one problem. You leave with practical next steps. No obligation.