Luxfer, Luxfer achieves Class ‘A
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Manufacturing News, Source : British Industry
Published : 15 Jul 2002 11:24
Four years ago, the Luxfer Gas Cylinders plant in Nottingham had no effective business processes, integrated IT systems, measures or management information.
A customer survey indicated that while product quality was considered to be excellent, lead times and delivery performance were extremely poor.
Luxfer CEO Ian McKinnon charged the company’s management with turning the business around, improving customer service and initiating fundamental change through an Oliver Wight Class ‘A’ Planning and Control implementation. Coupled with this was the implementation of an EFACS MRP II system. Luxfer has now achieved its Class ‘A’ status and in the process the plant has undergone a major culture change and business transition. Production manager Tim Jeffery commented: “A number of multi-disciplinary task forces were created to re-engineer our business processes and we achieved a steady and sustained rate of improvement as we got to grips with planning and control. Over the last three years our ‘on-time-in-full’ (OTIF) indicator has risen from the low teens to consistently over 95 per cent. Delivery speed, which is the elapsed time between placing an order and the cylinders being despatched, has reduced from over nine months to two months or less for some products.”
There have been extensive improvements in customer service and business performance through increased control, particularly of work-in-progress (reduced by as much as 67 per cent), stocks of raw materials and bought-in supplies, and inspection costs. Around £1 million was taken out of fixed costs in 2000.
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