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Ibstock Brick, Another brick in the wall

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Manufacturing in Action, Source : The Manufacturer
Published : September 2005

Ibstock Brick is changing its working methods and introducing new product lines to ensure it stays where it wants to be – a leader in the building materials industry. Ruari McCallion spoke to John Lambert

The construction industry is a tough business to be in. Demand – especially in the residential sector – has pushed house prices to record levels, although that may now have peaked. Land prices are high, the industry has faced skills shortages and housing requirements have changed. It is not short of challenges, but for brick manufacturers at least, competition from the Far East isn’t one of them. The weight of the product is one factor, but it’s not alone.

“The different aesthetic appearances of buildings in the regions around the country are due to local raw materials,” said John Lambert, TPM/project manager for Ibstock Brick, which has no fewer than 24 production sites in the UK. “Each of our plants make products that are unique to their region and they sell, predominantly, within that region. It’s the best way of meeting demand.” But that doesn’t mean there is no foreign competition at all.

“The European building materials market as a whole is fairly flat, so there is some stock available at competitive prices,” he said. Most of Ibstock’s competition comes from the UK but over 150 million bricks came into Britain from Europe over the past year, and they came into a market that’s already facing overcapacity. From the brickmakers’ point of view, there’s another factor in the equation: changing demographics, leading to a shift in demand.

“Nationally, we are producing less than we were five years ago and that’s because of a combination of factors,” said Lambert. “Primarily, if you look back five years, 45 per cent of dwellings were detached houses, and used around 13,000 bricks.” Government and planning authorities’ requirements for higher levels of housing density has led to a rise in apartment building, as a proportion of the whole. Aparments typically use only around 4000 bricks each so the situation arises whereby the number of housing starts may appear to be up but the number of bricks required is down.”

Market demands for higher quality and faster building has led to the development of new methods of building. Increasingly, small commercial premises, like roadside diners and small office blocks, are using modular construction techniques. They have their advantages: the panels are all made in perfect conditions – in the factory – so they all fit, properly. Construction isn’t delayed by bad weather; the buildings are quicker and easier to assemble on-site; and the skillsets are different from those required to lay bricks. Ibstock isn’t being left behind: in fact, it’s innovating with enthusiasm.

“We’re constantly looking at new ways of making product for exterior cladding. We’ve responded to market changes with new ways of using clay, our traditional material,” he said. “We’re now producing pre-formed panels of bricks, which have been used on four projects so far this year, with more on the drawing board.” The preformed panels aren’t simply units of bricks that have been cemented together within the factory. They’re actually backing panels onto which 15-20mm ‘slips’ – slices of brick – are mounted. They’re not the only things that the company produces to help make life for its customers easier. Its Intelligent Brickwork initiative has led to the development of a range of lightweight, pre-assembled specialist features like arches, bulls-eyes and quoins. They help productivity and, as they’re pre-assembled, the consistency of quality is at a level the traditional methods can’t easily reproduce. Ibstock’s Fireborn range is another example. Appropriate for both the commercial and the residential sector, they are large-format blocks and come in three standard colours: cream, red or blue; and in various satin and vibrant gloss finishes. Ibstock Group’s product portfolio also includes clay brick, clay pavers, dense and light block, roof tiles and architectural masonry. In short, if you need walls and a roof, you can get it from them.

Ibstock makes both wire-cut and moulded soft mud bricks. Soft mud and genuine handmade bricks are particularly popular in the south-east of the country and Ibstock is the leader not only there but across the UK, producing around 900 million bricks each year.

Soft mud bricks are often more rugged and have handmade appearance, which has a strong appeal in some parts of the country, but wire-cut bricks are also very popular and actually represent the greater proportion of Ibstock’s output. It depends very much on local conditions and preferences. Adapting to changing demands led the company to convert its Ellistown factory from wire-cut to soft mud production – but flexibility is important and it has retained the ability to convert it back, subject to the balance of customer demand.

Its flexibility gives it a competitive advantage in the marketplace and its strong presence in the south-east of the country means that it will be well-placed to supply the requirements of the Thames Gateway. That project involves the eastern, London and south-east regional development agencies, and represents the largest-ever residential development project in Europe.

Ibstock employs around 1900 people at its 24 plants around the country, from Glasgow in the north to Bexhill and Exeter in the south. That presents something of a management challenge, especially if the company is running a business-wide continuous improvement programme, as Ibstock is.

“Yes, it is something of a challenge,” Lambert said. Ibstock has based its factories’ continuous improvement strategy around TPM – total productive manufacture – which is, essentially, a set of tools and techniques designed to break the vicious circle of reactive maintenance. It does this by giving greater control to the teams of people who operate, changeover and maintain the machinery. “TPM is core to continuous improvement within manufacturing. The appeal of it, to us, is as standardisation of products and services increases people are often the only point of difference between competing organisations. The tools and techniques allow us to utilise and develop our people better.” Ibstock’s heritage is as a traditional operations/maintenance company: the operators ran the machines and did very little with maintenance. They let the maintenance teams know whenever anything went wrong and waited while it was fixed. The frustration for the operators – and, ultimately, management – is that the people who ran the machines knew how things could be better - and had some good ideas of how to stop breakdowns in the first place.

“TPM is the world class manufacturing approach to maximising the effectiveness of machinery and equipment on the factory floor. It not only addresses maintenance but all aspects of the operation and installation of manufacturing facilities and at its very heart lies the motivation and enhancement of factory floor personnel,” said Lambert. It is also “a change mechanism that concentrates on the facilities used within the company and involves people in a way in which they probably have not been involved before, thus changing the very culture of the company. TPM then helps to employ technology more effectively and gradually shows the need for company organisation and systems to be changed and helps bring about that change.” he continued. Implementation of TPM as a strategy has been achieved in a carefully structured way. “I work closely with all the factory managers, each of whom has the remit to drive TPM forward. My role is to develop the overall strategic direction and objectives for TPM in Ibstock and then provide guidance, support, and encouragement to the factories.” Each site manager has two key individuals supporting their efforts. As site facilitator and site co-ordinator, they drive the initiative forward in front-line roles. The company has had TPM in place now for nearly five years and the structure is pretty well established, but there were issues to be dealt with along the way.

“There was an element of the fear factor. As we trained and upskilled machine operators to do the basic maintenance, that allowed the fitters to do more complex work – but there was the fear that there would be lost jobs,” he said. After five years, no fitter has lost their employment as a result of TPM. How did Ibstock get its people to embrace the concepts within TPM?

“We told our fitters, ‘you are our technical support people, the production people will need you’, and we got them involved in the launch process at each stage,” he said. “Initially, at each site we worked on getting machinery back to a basic condition and getting the work area up to standard. We’ve worked very closely with the teams as we’ve moved to higher technical levels and this is when our maintenance employees have really excelled.” It’s a case where the basic concept of TPM is working: that the operator looks after routine basic maintenance and the skilled fitters come in to do more in-depth scheduled work, PPM, and advanced project work, and hopefully eliminate unforeseen breakdowns completely. The ability to keep the line going is reward in itself, but the greater involvement of the teams in looking for opportunities to improve generates even more benefit.

“We’re improving our machine performance beyond the book designed level, in some instances. We’re getting good ideas from all our employees - they’re the ones who know where the improvement opportunities are, where the improvements can be made,” said Lambert. The continuous improvement strategy and training go hand-in-hand with investment. Brickmaking is a five-step process: grinding and preparing the clay; forming; drying; firing; and packing.

“The key link in the process is the kiln. It works 24/7 and needs a constant supply of product to fire. The problems we’ve had have been predominately in forming and packing. Several factories have needed additional shifts to enable them to meet demand,” he said. “Through TPM, we’ve been able to reduce downtime and top-up shifts have been eliminated.” Investment in capital equipment and automation – in robot packaging, in particular – have also helped. The whole strategy has delivered efficiency, quality, environmental, health and safety and energy reduction gains. The company holds ISO 9000 and ISO 14001 accreditation – it’s the only UK brickmaker to have ISO 14001 at all its facilities. It’s inevitable that, with 24 sites involved, the pace of progress and individual achievements will vary. Ibstock is putting together a DVD for its staff that will cover TPM in detail and it has established a ladder of development, which takes the plants from introductory level to an advanced, integrated structure.

“When we looked at the challenge, we recognised that it would be impossible to achieve everything involved in TPM in one hit,” Lambert explained. “We identified all the tools and techniques associated with TPM and sub-divided them into manageable chunks. By the time the teams reach our level six, they will be ready for external assessment to international standards.” The external assessment that Lambert and his team have in mind is by the Japanese Institute of Management.

Throughout the company a constant focus on the continuous improvement programme and its influence on innovation, quality, customer service, people and culture are the building blocks Ibstock Brick relies on for its continued competitiveness and progress.