Author: Martin Reese

Cummins Engine Plant in Daventry has announced that it will be joining the national best practice visit programme Onsite Insights as a host site.  The Daventry site has undergone a period of expansion and growth and demonstrates outstanding employee engagement and lean manufacturing techniques.

Ailsa Carson, the Programme Director of Onsite Insights said “We are absolutely delighted that this site has chosen to become part of the National programme. Their experience and insights on how to create a high performing company will be of value to the wider UK industry – and not just manufacturing.”

Cummins is a world leader in the design and manufacture of engines and power generation equipment and the Daventry plant manufactures diesel and natural gas high-horsepower engines. More recently the plant has adapted to incorporate the assembly and testing of fully integrated Generator sets.

The Best Practice visit which will be held on 7 November 2018, will provide other organisations the opportunity to see first-hand how the company has created a culture of continuous improvement through employee engagement and the deployment of world-class processes.

The national visit programme encourages the adoption of best practice and lean in organisations across the UK & Europe.  Founded in the 1980’s by the Government, the programme continues to deliver excellent benefits for participating companies.  Its core purpose is to encourage the sharing of business improvement ideas to enable the development of world class practices in the UK.

The Onsite Insights programme already includes award-winning organisations such as Toyota, Siemens, Vale, Mars, Milliken, Mitsubishi and Princes Foods.

Cummins in Daventry is a welcome addition to the Onsite Insights programme. Organisations can reduce cost and improve productivity by learning from others, as ideas are ultimately transferable – across sectors and industries.

For more information on the visit to Cummins on the 7 November 2018 please contact info@onsiteinsights.org or visit the www.onsiteinsights.org

It doesn’t matter what your product or service is.  Your ability to stay, and succeed, in business relies solely on your ability to make each and every customer not only satisfied but also delighted with the service you offer.

For many years I worked in travel and tourism and I truly believe that other sectors and industries would benefit from understanding and ‘stealing with pride’ some of the best practices from this sector.  I have just been fortunate enough to stay at a wonderful hotel in Riccione, Italy – The Belvedere –rated as Europe’s Top Hotel in 2018, so would like to share some of the best transferable ideas – that can be applied in both manufacturing and service sectors alike.

Jim Womack once said “that every customer interaction is a Kaizen opportunity”.  If you consider the customer journey and interactions with your own organisation, you can not only improve on them, but you can create a personal experience that will be valued, trusted and will ultimately ensure you retain your customers and gain referrals and recommendations.

Customers should be advocates of you and your products. This not only means you need to provide the product that the customer pays for, but it also means you need to consider all of the interactions with the organisation – and ideally make them personal.

At the Belvedere, they have without doubt perfected this – not only do people travel incredible distances just to stay there, they can set their own market rate, they are oversubscribed and do not have to compete with other local operators.  What also impressed me, was there was literally not one bad review on the internet (and yes I checked). In tourism and travel this is important, but I believe that with the continuing growth of social media it is vital for any business.  There is a good reason for this, the service is exceptional.  From the moment you contact this hotel you are treated like one of the family. They make the experience personal, you never, ever feel that you are ‘just another customer’.  You leave, wanting to book your next stay just so you can experience it all over again.

So some of the best ideas you may like to consider adopting are:

• Understand the entire customer journey, and then consider how you can personalise touch points.
• Add value – identify what your customers want and go the extra mile. Whilst I know the lean approach is to deliver exactly what the customer pays for, there are enormous benefits to identifying low cost activities that will delight and surprise your customers.
• Go see & connect with your customers where they are. I was intrigued as to why there was so many Canadian visitors at The Belvedere, and one of them explained – the hotel sponsors a number of local bike races in Canada, and have a presence at their race days, whilst simply good marketing how many of us consider where our customers ‘hang-out’ and actually go there.
• Value your employees – happy employees are advocates of your products and your business. The world is connected, and satisfaction (and conversely dissatisfaction has an enormous ripple effect.) Remember employees talk!
• Use social media & connect with your customers on a more personal level, it’s not business anymore it really is personal. After all people buy from people.
• Respect the differing needs of consumers and build an offering that supports this.
• Really listen to what your customer has to say. This is something I have been considering lately. We are all becoming inundated with rating requests following any purchase, we are increasingly resistance to providing feedback. We live in a constantly changing environment so how do we continue to get the feedback we need to continuously improve. My thoughts are ditch the follow-up email and pick up the phone.

Some manufacturers and service industries are delighting customers.  Happy, a training company in London, have an established approach to delighting and surprising their customers.  Altro Floors have implemented a Voice of the Customer programme which ensures a regular litmus test of customer satisfaction. Their system is simple but it works and is embedded across the operation and it basically involves asking the customer exactly what it is they want from them, but also continually improving activities as a result.

We can learn a lot from others, which leads me to my most important learning from the visit. The need to evolve and continually challenge the norm in relation to customer satisfaction.  One of the team at the Belvedere, told me that he was constantly surprised at the new ideas the hotel came up with to surprise their guests.

So it’s back to the drawing board for me – I thought my customer experience was pretty good, but I have been given definite pause for thought

I have just attended an outstanding first visit to Dwr Cymru Welsh Water (‘DCWW’) in Cardiff, which provided numerous transferable ideas for the visitors that took part.  The company began their lean journey in 2011 and shared openly some of the key highlights and activities that are driving their programme both now and into the future.

DCWW is a highly complex business that manages over 3,000 employees, 3 million customers, 60 km of pipes and 40,000 hectares of land.  It contributes around £1 billion to the Welsh economy and is now also a major supplier of electricity.   It differs from the UK’s other large water companies in that it is a Not-For-Profit.

What I loved was the fact that the company has considered it’s burning platform.  They have understood that momentum and engagement and therefore the desire for change are improved when there is a rationale.  They are facing competition, but their biggest lean drivers are to:

• improve customer service and
• reduce the cost to serve.

The sheer diversity of the business and the fact the majority of staff work across remote geographic areas creates a few challenges for their lean programme. They haven’t resolved all of these yet, but they have made a very good start.  To date, the Lean programme has already driven significant benefits for the company, such as:

• Increased gas production
• 80% call out reduction
• 25% reduction in month end reporting
• Automated HR systems
• Embedded Standard Work Calendar
• Stabilised capacity planning

The highlights for the visitors and myself were:

Clear Roadmap

The Lean Model developed and adopted by DCWW has four key areas of focus:

• Customer – Voice of the Customer
• Culture – how do they get people to be re-active, how do they coach and develop the right leadership behaviours
• Capability – Building and deploying the right tools for the business.
• Systems of Work – Making CI business as usual

This is supported by a great six step deployment roadmap which is in the process of being rolled-out across the business.  See Diagram – the roadmap outlines a 6-12 month programme and within each step there are a clear activities and measures See Diagram

Lean Leadership Programme

Building capability and the right systems of work that will support the organisations strategic vision have been fundamental to engaging all employees in lean and continuous improvement.  A combination of a solid lean training programme, which is accredited by the Lean Competency Centre (LCS) and Cardiff University, combined with strong communication and strategy deployment has allowed them to gain traction across the business.

The structured programme is supported by a very useful Lean booklet which covers the strategy, definitions, useful problem-solving tools and communication guidelines.  It provides a great reference for all those within the business and ensures alignment.

100 Day Plans – my favourite transferable idea!

DCWW have deployed the 100-day improvement plan to support the CI activities across their sites.  Every team must set their 100-day plan which is then reported against.  It is a rolling programme and is supported by awards such as the 100-day Hero, and Team Awards.  The activities are all monitored and stored on the Lean Infozone for cross-company reference.

Problem Solving White Boards

During the visit to Cogs Moor we were fortunate to see how the Lean Leadership Programme translated into action.  The treatment site which is just one of several hundred satellite facilities across Wales, has really engaged and adopted the tools and opportunities that the lean programme has provided.  This is particularly evident in the substantial improvements in Asset Care and downtime.  The Problem Solving White Boards have been developed in house and can be taken anywhere on site.  They trigger best practice thinking in problem solving such as five why’s, fishbone analysis and PDCA.  The team actively use the board to resolve problems on site.  It is quick, efficient and practical.

Tidy Tuesdays

A great and easy quick win for DCWW was to introduce Tidy Tuesdays, where a focus is given to implementing Five S in a specific section or area.  For larger or more geographically distributed sites, this is a simple yet effective solution to maintaining a regular pulse of activity.

Also…

There were some great questions during the day and brilliant dialogue from the attendees which reminded me again why these visits drive so many benefits for participants.

One of the questions was about how you overcome resistance to change.  Mat Jackson, the companies CI Manager was quite open and honest saying that they were incredibly lucky at DCWW as everyone’s intentions are good and there is a clear desire to do the right thing for the customer, so the culture underpinned the ability to make the changes that were needed.

For me this reconfirms the need for organisations to get cultural alignment first before embarking on lean transformation.  Always focus on the customer and their needs first to drive step change within your company.

With thanks

I would like to extend my enormous thanks to Mat Jackson, Mat Johnson and John Boyd from DCWW and all those that made our visit so welcoming.

The next visit to DCWW is on 17 May 2018.  Please do contact me for further information or visit www.onsiteinsights.org

See the Best Practice Video produced by Crowcon Detection when ONsite Insights visited.

Fujifilm Speciality Ink Systems (Fujifilm) achieved the highest ranking of any manufacturing site on our visit feedback last year with an outstanding +97% NPS Score. It is no surprise to anyone that has been to the site, as it not only meets, but sets, world class standards in visual management, Five S and lean deployment.

More importantly, the visit to Fujifilm stands out because of the emphasis they place on culture, and the obvious commitment to creating an environment where continuous improvement (CI) and Lean is owned by every employee.

The site at Broadstairs employs 320 (180  in Operations) and is primarily a chemical blending operation.  They manufacture speciality inks for the digital and analogue printing industries. Exporting over 6,200 tonnes of finished product to 86 countries they achieve over 97% right first-time delivery levels – an industry-leading standard.

I have been visiting this site for over 10 years, and each time the new initiatives impress me, the latest being the introduction of Kamishibai and Electronic Process Control (Takt) Boards.  Excellent tools which are delivering great productivity and performance improvements.

I have highlighted some information on these and some of the other learnings from their recent visit.

A Sustainable Lean Programme

Underpinning CI at Fujfilm is a home grown Lean deployment framework.  A dedicated CI team of three people supports this – Gary Burgess, Gary Page and Adam Murrell.

When developing their programme Fujifilm recognized that not all of the lean tools could or should be applied at once, so they developed ‘Building Blocks’ to highlight and manage those initiatives that would drive CI through the organization, and keep a focus on quality. 

Many of these areas will be familiar to those that have studied Lean or Continuous Improvement, but what makes it work is that this has not changed in ten years. The consistency and determination to re-enforce their commitment to best practice has allowed them to achieve outstanding levels of operational excellence.

Fujifilm are very open about their journey with visitors, and shared the following lessons:

• It doesn’t matter what it’s called – Lean, WCM, CI – choose terminology that is homegrown and personal.
• Communicate – and communicate some more (see below).
• Get some early hits to gain momentum (Quick Wins)
• Don’t have a big launch & never ever use the term ‘initiative’
• Capture every problem as an opportunity to improve.
• Empower people & give them responsibility
• Manage expectations – upwards, downwards & outwards
• Remember & Celebrate success

Kamishibai Boards (Short Interval Control)

One of the most recent additions to the Fujifilm lean toolbox has been the introduction of Kamishibai boards to assist in daily, weekly and monthly task management in many areas of the business.  This latest tool has been adopted with enthusiasm by Team Leaders, operators and office staff as it provides a simple, visual task reminder. The Kamishibai boards are a short interval control mechanism to ensure repetitive tasks are completed, such as Autonomous Maintenance, Consumable replenishment and audit control.  (picture here)

Lean All areas – Laboratory and Beyond

Fujifilm are justifiably proud of how well lean and workplace organisation has been adopted in every area of the site.  The laboratory is one of the finest examples of workplace organisation you could find in the UK and the improvements introduced have led to significant cost savings.  The benefits are substantial, customer visits tend to focus on the laboratory area and as result of their exceptional standards they are always ‘tour ready’.

Andon & Visual Controls

2016 saw the introduction of electronic performance boards in each area of production. These allow operators and managers to see at a glance how each line is performing against Takt (pace of customer demand).

Ideas Programme – IPICS

One of the most popular ideas pinched with pride by visitors is the Fujifilm Ideas programme – IPICS.  This stands for Idea, Plan, Implement, Check Sustain.

This is managed through a simple t-card system developed in-house. Ownership of each idea is the initiator and activities are monitored by the team leaders.  A monthly reward and recognition programme support this.  To re-enforce the effectiveness of this programme in the last four years Fujifilm have seen the following results

• 3039 Ideas submitted
• 753 Declined
• 2286 Implemented

 

Communication, Communication, Communication

Fujifilm truly believe that the bedrock of any successful lean programme is communication. If employees don’t know what is happening, they can’t possibly support or replicate it.  Excellent communication allows you to gain, and sustain, momentum. When drawing up a lean programme it is imperative you address how activities and actions are disseminated.  Fujifilm share their communication programme which includes:

• Lean Awareness Training
• Five senior management briefings per year
• Employee communication forum
• Operator Issue Boards
• Strategy (Plan), vision & Values posted
• Comments boxes – answered every month!
• Annual employee survey
• Television communications channel
• Daily stand-up meetings & 5 min cell briefings

This seems a lot, but it all works on a holistic level, ensuring everyone who works at the site has clarity on where and what is happening.  Most importantly Gary Burgess, CI Manager at the site truly believes that a Daily Gemba (walking the line) is the key to sustaining lean at such a high level.

Our thanks go to Gary Burgess, Gary Page and Adam Murrell and all of the team at Fujifilm who gave up their time to share best practice with others.

• Design for Manufacture (DFM) or Design for Everything (DFx)
• Enterprise Alignment
• Cultural Transformation

The BAE Systems site at Rochester is part of the Electronic Systems division, which employs over 11,000 people over 23 sites worldwide. It has been at the heart of electronics manufacturing for the Defence and Civil Aviation industries for over 60 years. On the site there are over 1200 employees of which half are systems, software, electronic hardware designers, and mechanical engineers. The site is a center of excellence for a wide range of manufacturing processes – including PCB design and manufacture, optics, mechanics, assembly, and test equipment. One of the primary reasons the site is continuing to expand is due to the growth in products for the civil aviation and transport markets. It’s latest success has been the HybriDrive Solution for electric buses.

BAE Systems have been a host on the Onsite Insights programme for over 10 years and their willingness to share their journey with other companies interested in best practice has helped numerous organisations improve. On this visit BAE shared their focus on Design for Manufacture, their Continuous Improvement journey and the steps they have taken to transform their Culture.

Design for Everything (‘DFx’)

BAE’s primary objective for introducing DFx into their manufacturing process was, quite simply, to ensure products were designed in such a way that makes them easier to manufacture.

This means:

• Reduced component (material) complexity and cost
• Reduced assembly (labour) time
• Reduced test time and opitimised the test procedures
• Improved serviceability throughout the life of the product
• Prevent problems and improved quality
• Ensured design meets the project cost targets.

When launching this initiative they were faced with common challenges ‘there’s not enough time’, ‘we only manufacture in low volumes, assembly is only a small fraction of the total costs’, ‘We’ve been doing it for years’. BAE acknowledged these, but truly believed that by systematically introducing DFx early in the design phase they would be able to bring products to market faster and at a better quality.

So in practice, what did this mean? Their initial focus was to create a supportive DFx culture by co-locating the design team within Manufacturing, this immediately broke down barriers and opened up communication. This allowed them to address what came to be known as ‘The Ugly Baby Syndrome’ where design engineers and product managers refused any critique of their pride and joy!

BAE had some excellent advice – Every company needs to first establish what their focus for DFx needs to be. For BAE this was to provide a strong focus on Design for Test as well as Design for Manufacture (hence the use of DFx not DFM). The rationale being that when they make it easier to test and easier to support – they make the right decisions in manufacturing.

BAE introduced a balanced scorecard to determine the most cost effective and manufacturable concept. Importantly the balanced scorecard allowed them to open up engagement across the business. This scoring system allowed BAE to have better visibility of design priorities and allowed for input from different departments. The example they used to explain this was the redesign of a Chassis Assembly – by using the scorecard they gained the view point of the supply chain, engineers and design team to review and score different manufacturing approaches from machined casting to assembled extrusion. The outcome was to develop a new process which drove £200k annual savings.

Starting with the best possible design is always better than improving a weak one.

They also recommend using the Boothroyd Dewhurst Principle for parts analysis:

• Essential – does the part need to be a different material? Does the part need to move in relation to the other parts? Does the part need to be removable for maintenance?
• Wrong Part Right – Are there two or more parts in the BOM that are so similar that they could be confused and the wrong part fitted?
• Right Part Wrong – Is the way each part is fitted error proof?

If this is considered at the design stage it is easier to rule out potential assembly errors and mistake proof processes. Creating the best possible manufacturing environment.

Design trade-offs are often presented as black and white – for example reducing complexity can increase the overall cost to produce. However, it is always necessary to look at the end-to-end manufacturing process including aspects like piece part storage, BOMs, configuration impacts. One of the lessons BAE learned during this process was the trade-off may be more complex than the data available. i.e. defect rates, full lifecycle & impact to support.

DFx is now a natural part of new product development at BAE and has allowed them to provide a framework which ensures the front end of the project is loaded with the right people – improving the quality, success and longevity of the final build and delivery to the customer.

Lean Journey

The site was an early adopter of continuous improvement and Lean, in 1998 they began their first Manufacturing Improvement Programme, this has evolved over time to include a focus on Lean, Six Sigma, Lean Office, Benchmarking and application of many of the common Lean tools and concepts such as Five S (Workplace Organisation), Visual Management, Kanban (stock control) and Poke Yoke (Error Proofing). However, in 2005 they were struck by the fact that whilst they clearly understood and applied many of the improvement tools they struggled to sustain them, a localized approach was seeing improvements in certain areas creating bottlenecks in others, a challenge many companies will empathise with.

It became clear that to move forward they needed to find a framework that considered the end-to-end manufacturing process. BAE decided to adopt the Shingo Model for operational excellence. The benefits of the Shingo Model are the focus on Cultural Enablers as a foundation. This, I believe is what sets the Shingo Model apart from the TPS (Toyota Production System model), it relies on Culture first, and on this you can build successful and sustainable Continuous Improvement. Shingo also encourages systemic thinking – the need to look across the entire business and recognize the impacts of actions on others.

One of the key practices that have supported the organization is the Standardisation of both work and daily management – this provides:

• Greater process control
• Reduction in variability
• Improved quality and flexibility
• Stability (i.e. Predictable Outcomes)
• Visibility of abnormalities
• Clear expectations

This approach has had a marked impact on the business. BAE have seen a 50% increase in sales per employee, 10% reduction in overheads, they now have a 99.5% on time delivery to customer and have achieved a 4 times reduction in printed circuit board processing times.

Changing Hearts & Minds

One of the most noticeable changes I have seen at BAE Systems over the last five years is the improvements they have made to employee engagement. The focus on Shingo, has made them consider their culture, values and behaviours. They asked the question – what is culture? They defined it as a sum of their behaviours, values and principles – the way one conducts oneself, the treatment of others, our worth or standards and the laws that we base our reason or action on.

The focus on people and culture has driven a number of initatives:

• A Wellness Activity Programme – employees recognized there was a desire to be part of a social club – so BAE now subsdise more social activities to create a more inclusive environment, creating an organization that people want to be part
• Ensuring a safe environment – it became the norm that it was a safe environment – so BAE began looking at ‘near miss’ which made Health & Safety more pro-active. This evolved into physical safety, ethical behavior and employee wellbeing.
• The ‘Recognising Excellence’ scheme and Rochester Chairman’s Award is given to people to recognize desired behaviours.
• Skip Meetings – are open forums with the very senior members of the organization encouraging two way communications with cross sectors of the organization.
• The Improvement Matters framework – makes use of peoples thoughts and ideas. It has generated small improvements and even new product lines.
• Seeing the future – BAE create a mock newspaper set three years in the future. This sets out where employees hope to be three years in the future. It’s great fun and gets people thinking creatively.

From my observation, an important outcome of this is it has created a constancy of purpose as everyone has agreed on and understood the companies strategic goals. This provides a clear and unifying vision, which in turn stops the ups and downs created when people come and go.

One Big Thing

My big take-away from the visit is what BAE call their ‘One Big Thing’. This is the one strategic goal they are going to focus on in the coming year. Yes, there are multiple other targets, but the One Big Thing is the item that will lead to the biggest transformation in their business.

Flashmobs

BAE finished their visit with the following video. I would advise you to think twice about watching it though as you will be singing the song in your head for a week (and sorry if you get the YouTube Ads!)! If you do or you don’t the message is a great one for anyone responsible for culture change – flashmobs work because they position key people within the group that know the actions (behaviours) expected, the others follow each of these people and changing behaviour is infectious.

Our thanks go out to the BAE team at Rochester who openly shared their experience with honesty, humility and a great deal of humour!

If you would like to see first-hand how BAE Systems have approached their journey to World Class Manufacturing, pre-register for their next visit in 2018.