Lanes Health is using FourJaw to replace anecdotal reporting with reliable production data, uncover hidden downtime and support better-informed decisions across its manufacturing operation.
As part of a proactive drive to strengthen operational visibility and make better use of its existing resources, the company deployed FourJaw across nine production lines.
By using FourJaw as a single source of operational truth, Lanes Health is now able to identify production bottlenecks, track batch progress, prioritise engineering activity, and improve resource management across its manufacturing operation.
Founded in 1930, Lanes Health is a fourth-generation, family-owned British health and wellbeing company based in Gloucester. For more than 90 years, it has grown from its roots in natural healthcare into a manufacturer and supplier of over-the-counter medicines, food supplements and natural products.
Its portfolio includes recognised household brands such as Olbas, Kalms, Pro Plus and Jakemans.
The company combines its longstanding healthcare heritage with extensive UK manufacturing capabilities. Its operations cover a wide range of product formats and processes, including tablets, capsules, powders, creams, liquids and oils, as well as coating, blistering, tube filling and glass & plastic bottle filling.
The Challenge
With multiple production lines and departments involved in manufacturing, Lanes Health needed a clearer and more reliable way to understand what was happening on the factory floor, where time was being lost, and how resources could be used more effectively.
Before FourJaw, Lanes Health relied on manual controls and anecdotal input to prioritise jobs, track batch progress and solve production problems.
This made it harder for teams to consistently identify the root causes of downtime, understand which issues were having the greatest impact, and make fully informed decisions about production, engineering priorities and resource management.
Production, engineering, finance, quality assurance and lean manufacturing teams all needed access to reliable operational data, but the business did not have a single real-time view of factory-floor performance.
Lanes Health deployed FourJaw across nine of its production lines, giving teams access to reliable, real-time production monitoring data.
FourJaw now helps Lanes Health:
Identify operational bottlenecks
Track batch progress
Understand downtime
In addition, the team can now prioritise engineering tasks based on objective evidence rather than manual reporting or anecdotal feedback.
The system has established a single source of operational truth across the business, supporting teams in production, engineering, finance, quality assurance and lean manufacturing.
Identified hidden downtime
Since introducing this new way of working, Lanes Health has been able to identify hidden downtime on its bottling lines and the root causes behind them, enabling them to begin addressing the most important downtime events.
Streamlined Quality Assurance
This downtime data has also streamlined quality assurance by enabling instant verification of production interruptions.
Claire Allen, QMS Officer at Lanes Health, said:
“Before FourJaw, much of our understanding of downtime came through manual processes.
Now we have documented data that helps us pinpoint recurring issues, share clear evidence with engineering and production, and focus improvement work where it will have the biggest impact. It has made our conversations more data led.”
Supported Financial teams
FourJaw’s has also given Lanes Health’s finance department a more accurate view of live and completed production activity, enabling it to identify contributing value of additional work in progress at month-end.
Anna Gibbons, Finance Manager at Lanes Health, said:
“FourJaw gives us a clearer view of what is happening on the factory floor and how that translates into cost. We can see where production time is used effectively, where work is still in progress, and where there are opportunities to maximise the resources we already have.
That visibility gives finance stronger data to support costing, month-end reporting and operational decision-making.”
FourJaw has given Lanes Health a shared operational picture that extends from the factory floor to the finance department.
Production and engineering teams can use reliable data to prioritise improvement work and address the costliest causes of downtime.
Quality assurance can verify production interruptions without relying solely on manual processes, while finance has stronger information for costing, month-end reporting and operational decision-making.
The deployment is helping Lanes Health make more informed use of its existing people, equipment and production time, while building a stronger data foundation for continued operational improvement.
Chris Iveson, CEO at FourJaw Manufacturing Analytics, said:
“Lanes Health has recognised that to truly transform factory performance, you have to replace anecdotal evidence with objective, real-time data.
By deploying FourJaw, it has created a single source of operational truth that empowers everyone from the shop floor to the finance office to make better, data-led decisions that drive efficiency and cost savings across the business”
Maximising resources with better data.
FourJaw has helped Lanes Health move from manual processes and anecdotal reporting to data-led manufacturing decisions.
With real-time visibility across nine production lines, teams can see where production time is being used effectively, where bottlenecks are occurring, and where there are opportunities to maximise the resources already available.
This visibility supports better collaboration between departments, helping production, engineering, finance, quality assurance and lean manufacturing teams work from the same information.