Back in the year 2000, the company was struggling to survive and management felt that there was a need to radically transform the company culture at shop floor level.
Mr Wheelwright takes up the story: “About five years ago the business was in survival mode and we had to make the changes to be able to survive to the present time. We are now extremely successful and much of our success has been based on the operation of new business units and the people that we have within the business. “We started the culture change here in Telford and we now have a very cooperative relationship between the shop floor and management. We achieved that by employing a company called Competitive Dynamics who helped us introduce a philosophy called “Mission-Directed Work Teams” which is all about involving people at the sharp end in the decisions which drive the business.
“There was a lot of training and staff got involved in business units very locally and took ownership for costs, quality, output and health and safety, clearly supported by a management structure that was allied to that. It was about getting the guys at the bottom end involved in the business and problem solving.”
Comprehensive training centred on lean principles, common sense and a sense of involvement, common sense and a sense of involvement, starting with the development of the business units and involvement in the charts that tracked spend, quality and output. The company has been transformed and currently has a big drive on 5s, whilst SMED training and activity has significantly improved production techniques (the company still runs SMED activities on quarterly basis).
Every month the business units come together and provide presentations on themes – and improvements don’t just come from the shop floor as Mr. Wheelwright explains, “We recently had a fantastic presentation from the planning department who had made significant improvements (60% improvement) to the speed of their response.
Staff suggestions are also actively encouraged and one of the most successful ideas has seen a 10 per cent reduction in material costs in one of the business units.
However, perhaps the most radical improvement has been in attitude and customer focus, which Mr Wheelwright feels has played a significant part in the company’s recent reward recognition.
He remains clear on the company’s focus, “It has to be an ongoing passion to drive cost out of the business, to improve our quality performance and to continue to work flexibly with customers and deliver what they want, when they want it – and to have that approach built into everyone’s mentality.”
