Funding helps Thirsk-based manufacturer stand the...

Imagine you could turn back the clock for a few more hours. What would you do? Most business owners want more time. Each day ends and, whether you’re an employer or employee, there’s still a million more jobs to do. You know the feeling, right? We’ve all been there and Justin Bartlett from Thirsk-based Treske, a family-owned furniture and kitchen manufacturing business, had had enough. 

Treske was founded in 1973 and has seen some great successes over the years, including the Manufacturing Guild Mark, awarded for excellence in British manufacturing. But despite its growth, Treske relied on manual systems to track time, which made it difficult to forecast its capacity for production.

To address this, Treske approached the Manufacturing Growth Programme. The programme offered a grant that contributed towards the costs of measuring real time in the manufacturing process through the development of time capture programming. This was linked to production scheduling in order to improve efficiency. 

Production scheduling and time capture was only one area of many that Treske were addressing. This is when How’s Business, the central point of contact for business support in York, North Yorkshire and East Riding, stepped in to help. How’s Business know that you don’t need an insight into every single support programme out there (there are hundreds). What you need to know, is what help is available to support your business strategy today. Filtering through every single support programme could take days – and time was something Treske didn’t have. But after discussing its needs with How’s Business, Treske discovered that the capital funding programme of Let’s Grow could be a great fit for the business strategy. Funding from Let’s Grow enabled Treske to reduce the risk of investing in new equipment. 

Now, Treske is looking to unveil a brand new CNC machine to help automate the cutting of their wood. Not only will this free up the manufacturing process and add more hours to the day, the machine can also create more complex products which will demonstrate the high quality of Treske and open up new areas of the market. 

When asked about How’s Business, Justin explained “they have enabled us to invest in the machinery needed for our future development. This was a really important project and their involvement has reduced some of the risk.” 

There isn’t an overnight fix that covers every single business problem, so How’s Business will remain in touch with Treske, ready to offer further guidance. Treske has already begun to access website development support through the programme Digital Advantage. The funding is providing an e-commerce specialist who is updating the Treske furniture website to enable online purchases. This will simplify the buying process for customers and could lead to increased domestic and international sales. By connecting with How’s Business, Justin is getting closer to his goal of becoming the premier quality furniture and kitchen design and manufacturing company. 

If you’re short on time, but want to know more about business growth opportunities, get in touch now with How’s Business via support@howsbusiness.org.