All you need is Love

When Rob Love whisked the Best Factory Award (BFA) trophy out from behind the sofa to show his parents last weekend he must have been sorely tempted to remind his dad about some errant career advice. "Dad was an engineer and he did his best to discourage me from being one. I didn't listen," recalls the man who led City Technology's Portsmouth site to the Toyota Material Handling Factory of the Year crown at last month's BFAs. "We laugh about this because he kept telling me to become a dentist: that's where the money was." The only dentistry on display at the BFAs was found behind Love's beaming smile from the winner's rostrum. "When our name was read out, I'm not usually one who's short of words, but I was literally speechless," he recalls. "It was a mixture of shock and pure elation." City's BFA win is the stuff of Mills and Boon. A victory masterminded by a former apprentice in Love. And at a factory was entering the BFAs for the first time and almost talked itself out of the running altogether. "We turned round and said: 'no, we're not ready'," says Love of the moment his bosses at City's US parent company Honeywell recommended entering. "We thought we had so far to go. But they encouraged us to give it a go." The gruelling inspection by the BFA judges that followed gave no hint of impending silverware. "Normally you get a feel for whether you've done okay. I was talking to the guys on the shopfloor and we all had no idea," explains Love. But behind the poker faces, the BFA judges were marvelling over a site with a trump hand. City, Portsmouth had always had a reputation for innovative gas sensors since being set up as a university spin off in 1977. However only after being bought by US technology giant Honeywell in 2006 did the factory evolve the production standards to match. Quality manufacturing became the new panacea for Portsmouth. "It was a big change," says Love. "Honeywell challenged us on quality. We needed to eliminate variation and get our processes under control." Step forward a man who as a former manufacturing engineer blended technical skills with a talent for teamwork. Love says: "If you want to lead change in any business then the person you are working with has to understand what's in it for them." Love set about doing just that during a series of shopfloor kaizen blitzes following Honeywell's takeover. His key duty was rolling out of the Honeywell Operating System (HOS). The system uses Six Sigma and lean techniques to boost safety quality, cost, delivery and inventory in operations. Under HOS old factory heirachies were replaced with tiered accountability, empowering employees closest to the work to problem solve. For example, line-side teams have been entrusted with workstation redesigns targeting gains in efficiency, flexibility and a reduction in errors. Employees are equipped with stopwatches, cardboard and sticky back plastic as they vie to put together prototype production bays. Many lines have moved to standing rather than seated assembly to boost ergonomics. Getting involved in manufacturing's answer to Grand Designs has galvanised team morale reveals Love. "When we started on the journey there was a lot of verbal resistance. People very nervous saying: 'we're not going to be able to do that'. But as we worked with more and more manufacturing cells, the resistance fell away. Now people are saying: 'when are we going to do our cell?'" It's an example of the 'can do'attitude that's been the catalyst for City's BFA triumph. Employee buy in to HOS has powered a reduction in error rates from 8,000 parts per million (ppm) to 1,000ppm. "Our people know that lives depend on the quality of our sensors," reflects Love of technology that detects toxic gas levels everywhere from refineries to the flues of household boilers. "I sometimes use the analogy of a parachute. It might only be one product out of a million but if you were jumping out of a plane would you want that one bad product on your back?" On his mission to further reduce the risks, Love knows he must make this jump in tandem with City's shopfloor. "As long as you're listen to the people that are doing the processes you'll be successful, " he says. "If you don't listen and think you know best, you will fail. Remember that people doing the job generally have the best ideas." Rob Love factfile Age: 46 Job: Site leader, City Technology Portsmouth CV: Served as an apprentice for Portsmouth Aviation, manufacturer of defence technology for naval vessels and fighter jets. Love joined City Technology in 2001 as a manufacturing engineer. He became a business unit manager for Combustible Gas sensors. City was acquired by Honeywell in 2006 and Love was given responsibility for rolling out the Honey Well Operating System. Love's efforts have helped Portsmouth register gains in operational efficiency, delivery performance and reduce failure rates on gas sensors. Love was promoted to site leader for Portsmouth in December 2013. Management mantra: "Be hands on but listen to those closest to the work. Give your employees accountability and coach them to spot and address problems." Switching off from work: Love is a keen cyclist and runner. He is married with has two daughters and lives in Waltham Chase. He would be delighted if either became engineers but taking a leaf out of his dad's reverse psychology book he might try and tell them to do anything but. Love on The reaction to the win "There's a real buzz. There were some things posted on Facebook by the shopfloor that makes you proud. There was no individual claiming success, it was all about how the team had done fantastic." Apprenticeships "I was thrown in at the deep end working with big burly engineers telling me how it should be done. I went through all the different departments so a learnt a small amount about of lots of things. The big learning was how to work with different people." His dad's career advice "Dad was a craft engineer for a small special purpose machinery business and also a former apprentice. He advised me to become a dentist because working in the sector in the 70s and 80s his advice was there wasn't a lot of money in engineering."