Learning lean

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Manufacturing News, Source : TheManufacturer.com
Published : 29 Apr 2005 8:48

Close to 150 delegates from the world of manufacturing packed the National Motorcycle Museum on the outskirts of Birmingham yesterday (Thursday 28 April) to be inspired to accelerate their efforts to keep the threats of China and India away.

In 10 years time, they heard the chilling prospect that China could be the world’s largest economy with the US at number two and India third.

In a keynote address, Siemens managing director Gordon Wakeford told how the company’s Congleton factory had set out on its lean journey and was outpacing the performance of the company’s other overseas factories to in its fight to keep production in the UK.

Others telling the story of their lean journey were GKN Driveline’s best practice director Peter Watkins; Ray Stone, managing director at Special Metals Wiggin; Tony Traynor, operations director for Ineos Chlor; and Mike Lloyd, operations director at Rolls-Royce.

Coming together at the end of the day to sum up their ‘secrets’ for making progress on the lean manufacturing journey they were pushed to one-word answers and came up with:

• Stamina

• Commitment

• Leadership

• People

• Getting on with it.