The Savage-Hutter (SH) equations describe the motion of granular material under the influence of friction Based or the kinetic formulation of the SH equations, we present a kinetic scheme in one dimension, which describes the deformation of the mass profile and allows it to start and to stop. Moreover the method is able to preserve the steady states of granular masses at rest. The method is tested on several numerical examples. Copyright (C) 2008 John Wiley \& Sons. Ltd.