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Q What was the best bit about the 2012 Best Factory Awards? I don't think people realise how much good the awards actually do. It seems to me that the vast majority enter the Best Factory Awards with a great deal of trepidation, fearing they might not be good enough. But they should be prepared to be judged against their peers, because that is an important measure of how you are performing. As far as PP Electrical Systems is concerned, we have done very well by the awards over the years. We've been part of the BFAs since 2005 and enjoyed a lot of success in that time, winning eight awards altogether. It's not only a great achievement for those who win, but it also gives that organisation massive publicity, which is really a measure of the regard in which they are held. Q How would Britain's best factories fare in a worldwide Top Factory competition? Someone who has a formidable reputation for knowing the automotive industry inside out, with close connections to the Japanese market, came to visit PP recently. Before he actually went into the factory, I said to him: "Would you please look at our business while you are here and say where you rate us?" Afterwards, he came back and told me he'd awarded us 7 out of 10. I wasn't happy with that – not as a company that's won so many awards for excellence – but what troubled me even more was that he went on to say the next best score for anyone in the country would be 4 out of 10. Why? Because we just aren't competing. We aren't investing enough in the right skills and training. At PP, we've been practising lean for the past 20 years, but I still see people at events and meetings who ask me if they should be doing the same. We just don't seem to get it in the UK. You have to teach people the practical skills they need to make the business the best it can be. All the billions spent on government-funded schemes misses the point if there's no hands-on training. Would you ever learn to drive a car in a classroom? No. And operating a modern CNC machine takes even more nous, so you need lots of practice to get it right. Beyond that, we are engaging with the big companies to get them to understand exactly why training matters – bringing their top people in to undertake Six Sigma exercises and lean audits around the factory. Many have never done this before and yet are often the ones making final decisions about the business. Q What should manufacturers know about PP Electrical Systems? We have been investing heavily of late in growing the business, including opening a new office in Hamburg. We are determined to up the ante, always reaching for the next handhold to take us up the mountain. Part of that expansion has been more investment in salespeople, because we want to make a connection with the larger end users, beyond the OEMs. We are now beating Six Sigma levels of connectivity, which allows us to be brave; to go out there and influence those organisations to purchase a product that has one of our control systems associated with it. Our whole focus is on pushing up the quality of our products and going for it. Q What's your favourite UK-manufactured product and why? It has to be Jaguar Land Rover. Its latest sports car is absolutely superb – a brilliant design, with worldwide appeal. And this from an industry that was stone dead not that long ago! My one quibble would be that the government is still heavily funding its training when more could be going to other manufacturers that are being left behind at a time when competitiveness is getting better and better. Q What do you wish was made in GB? More sensible decisions about the contributions of training to the sustainability of a business! I would like to see manufacturers put more into the practical side of training, rather than relying on the colleges and universities to do the whole job for them.