Here, we explore how Made Smarter – the Government-backed, industry-led initiative designed to help manufacturing businesses accelerate digital transformation – supports the adoption of modern digital technologies and innovation to boost productivity, growth, competitiveness, and workforce skills.
Furniture and joinery manufacturing businesses are built on skill, precision and reputation. Yet even the most established workshops are operating in tougher conditions than ever before. Rising material and energy costs, labour shortages, tighter margins, and increasing customer expectations around speed, customisation and sustainability are reshaping the sector.
For many businesses, the challenge is knowing where to start with digital technology, what will genuinely deliver value, and how to introduce change without disrupting the craft and quality that define them. Just as importantly, it is about bringing your people with you. Made Smarter was created to address exactly that. The government-backed programme supports SME manufacturers to improve productivity and competitiveness through digital technology and skills. It is designed to remove the three biggest barriers to adoption, time, knowledge and capital, through a structured and practical support model.
It begins with consultation. Every business starts with a fully funded Digital Transformation Workshop. In just a few hours, a technology adviser, supported by workforce development specialists, works with the leadership team to understand products, processes, people and pressures. The focus is always on practical operational improvement. The result is a clear, prioritised roadmap.
For furniture and joinery firms, that often means tackling familiar issues: manual quoting processes, fragmented spreadsheets, bottlenecks on the shop floor, limited visibility of work in progress, and avoidable material waste. The workshop cuts through the jargon and provides clarity, identifying where digital tools could streamline design, planning, production and customer engagement.
In the South East, where the programme is completing its pilot year, furniture manufacturers are using the digital roadmap as the foundation for structured progress before committing significant capital investment.
Philip Clay Design, a bespoke cabinetry business based in Buckinghamshire, is working through a roadmap that includes implementing an ERP system to streamline pricing, scheduling and job tracking. It is also exploring improvements to resource planning, finishing processes and data-driven estimating. Alongside this, the management team is engaging with Made Smarter’s Leadership programme to ensure the business has the strategy and confidence to introduce change in a structured way.
Pictured: Philip Clay Design team
In established regions such as the North West and Yorkshire, where the programme has been operating for several years, those roadmaps have already translated into tangible investment and measurable impact.
James Tanner Joinery is a Cumbrian manufacturer of hardwood and softwood products used in the commercial and private sectors, including bespoke sash windows, doors and staircases.
Backed by a technology grant from Made Smarter, the business adopted a five-axis CNC machine and software to eliminate labour-intensive processes and connect to new cloud-based design systems. The software tracks the life journey of a product, from customer enquiry and fully rendered 3D design through to manufacture and delivery.
A window that previously took around 60 minutes to machine can now be completed in just four and a half minutes, with greater accuracy and production control.
When combined with the new design and programming process, overall job time is expected to reduce by 50%. The system also provides predictive maintenance, downtime analysis and secure cloud-based data storage with remote access.
This example illustrates how a roadmap translates into the right technology at the right time. That may include ERP and MRP systems to integrate sales and manufacturing, CAD automation, robotic sanding or spraying, barcode systems, machine monitoring dashboards or AI-enabled forecasting tools. The emphasis is always on solving operational challenges, not deploying technology for its own sake.
Crucially, technology adoption is not about replacing jobs. It is about removing repetitive, low-value tasks and enabling skilled people to focus on craftsmanship, customer relationships and higher-value technical roles that support growth.
Pictured: James Tanner Joinery
That focus on people is central to Made Smarter. Technology, after all, is a tool. Businesses are offered access to two skills programmes, Leadership and Champions, which support organisations at both strategic and operational level. Meanwhile, digital internships provide additional capacity to accelerate defined projects and embed new digital skills within the business.
In Yorkshire, bespoke furniture manufacturer, Treske, benefited from both. Managing Director Justin Bartlett used the Leadership programme to equip the business with the strategy to adopt new technologies and lead organisational change. Applied Data Science graduate Madonna Tsegha then joined the team as a digital intern. Her fully funded three-month placement consolidated fragmented data into a single, reliable source of truth, removing a long-standing barrier to implementing a customer relationship management system.
For a sector built on precision and reputation, standing still is not an option. With a structured roadmap, targeted investment and confident leadership, technology strengthens craftsmanship rather than replacing it. When approached with clarity and purpose, digital transformation enhances efficiency, unlocks capacity and supports long-term growth. With Made Smarter funding renewed across all English regions from April, furniture and joinery manufacturers have a clear route to turn ambition into action.
Pictured below: Madonna Tsegha (Made Smarter digital intern) and Justin Bartlett (Managing Director, Treske)
