Griffiths & Hood, as with most manufacturing companies, traditionally had two shutdowns a year, one in summer and one over Christmas.

Historically these were a chance to take a step back from the hectic nature of the day-to-day work and to assess our operation as a whole. The method in this shutdown was to ensure our facilities were in perfect working order and make large-scale adjustments to the factory structure. Ultimately the purpose is to ensure we were operating at full capacity for the remainder of the year.

Some machines required a lengthy cleaning procedure that meant they could not be used for an extended period of time. It made sense to shutdown the entire operation and thoroughly check, clean and service all machines at the same time. The alternative of halting one stage at a time would lead to backlogs, bottlenecks and most importantly, poor quality of finished item.

New machinery typically, whilst by no means perfect, does not require the same depth of cleaning and/or servicing. One of the appealing features of new machinery is their improved reliability and designs that lean towards ease of cleaning/servicing. These days a computer program is more likely to clean itself out overnight than a hydraulic press need a good sweeping!

There are times when we can identify a reordering of the factory set-up will lead to an increase in efficiency and/or safety. Recently this has revolved around the arrival of machinery; namely the arrival of our new CNC Router and Edge Bander in Winter 2016. Clearing a space for the new additions was a three day job, with another two weeks before they were fully installed, calibrated and working. Over a year later we are still finding new possibilities on the machines as we continue to push their limitations.

Since 2015 Griffiths & Hood no longer undertake a summer shutdown, we recognised the additional delay was causing problems for our customers. Modern manufacturing is as much about reliability and speed as it is quality. We do believe our regular customers understood it was an industry standard and not uncommon, however understandably their clients did not accept delays caused by manufacturing plants shutting down! In light of this, we only shutdown for two weeks over Christmas, in 2017 these dates are from 22 December 2017 until 03 January 2018.

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