Think a little wider act much smarter

"Business improvement is mostly about having the vision to go forward, common sense and finding ways to bring people, processes and systems with you – and that includes getting absolute buy-in from the management team.” So says Mike Robinson, group operations director for Farnborough, Hampshire-based Loma Systems, a contaminant detection equipment manufacturer for the food industry. To do that you need solid engineering and management skills. He has, and it shows. From a BSc in mechanical engineering from City University in 1971, a masters in materials science and more latterly an MBA, he combines down to earth engineering and industry know-how with pragmatic business and management sense. It’s an aside, but he says, “I’d recommend anyone in industry to do an MBA. Engineering teaches you about technical matters; an MBA helps you think about business strategy – getting a helicopter view. And you learn about people…” Already there’s a clue to the state of so many British manufacturers. Robinson’s engineering career has spanned everything from electrical to process control to machine tools to aerospace component manufacture: small batch, bespoke and volume manufacturing. And he has done his time in R&D, engineering management, manufacturing management, supply chain management and general management. Common sense and detail He accepts that most of his professional career has been in troubleshooting or, as he puts it, “achieving business improvement”. Either way, the common thread is situations that require major change. “I guess that’s my reputation,” he quips. How does he do it? He considers: “By applying common sense,” he says. And, keen on metaphor, he adds: “A lot of people don’t seem to be able to see the wood for the trees, but a fresh pair of eyes can peel back the layers and cut to the key issues.” What does that mean? “You’ve got to look at the difference you could make to the way the whole business runs. I make it my business to walk around the shop floor and speak to the senior and middle management. I look for all the key indicators – quality, delivery performance, engineering design, materials supply, inventory, lead times, productivity versus cost.” The objective is invariably to optimise, and to achieve that you must take a holistic approach. “That’s what takes the time – that’s where the initial energy has to go. You can’t start it in one finite area of the business; you have to draw together every part of the business,” he cautions. “It’s no good trying to get productivity faster if design is bad. Often businesses are too focused just on productivity, but improving this could be unachievable because of problems with design for manufacture.” Similarly, there is almost always scope for rationalisation – of components and assemblies as well as suppliers, and for implementing kanbans and some JIT (just in time), and ideally some vendor-managed inventory (VMI) to improve the cost ratio. Taking the argument further, however, he insists: “It’s also not only about manufacturing; it’s about examining your business processes across departments, working with suppliers, getting the control systems in the business right to satisfy a parent that’s a plc.” He uses some basic tools. “You can learn from the 5S programme, for example – S1, sort; S2, set; S3, shine. They’re good to kick off any project.” And we’re back to basic shopfloor management initiatives extended conceptually throughout the business. But that done, his key weapon is ‘value stream mapping’. And he’s used it for design, design for manufacture, component and assembly standardisation, supplier performance, order processing, the lot. “Order processing, for example: for this alone there can be a lot of unnecessary processes. It may be four or five departments with a lot of paper sitting on desks causing delay and wasted time and effort. Consider this: an internal sales team; a planning department scheduling in requirements; engineering dealing with the bespoke part of that; purchasing; and then progress chasing. You don’t need all that: it’s much more efficient to do it in one.” And that’s just part of what he’s achieved at Loma. “Order processing is now part of manufacturing systems management – and we’ve cut three to five weeks from the original 12 to 14 week cycle time. That’s the value of the holistic approach of value stream mapping. You’ve got to be always adding value – or don’t do it.” Another classic, which he alludes to, is finance. “One of the biggest constraints is aligning the accounts function to the needs of the business,” he notes. So where is the value-add, he asks, if when products that take say 14 weeks to deliver, and thus cross three accounting periods, people and systems blindly measure and report WIP (work in progress) three times? “MRP is geared in this way – to booking materials to operations – but in make-to-order WIP is small, and it’s an administrative nightmare. By counting only as raw materials, finished goods and invoices you can remove all that: orders come in, they’re processed and leave, and you simply back flush against the BoM (bill of materials). In our case it’s done as one operation and it’s a keystroke now instead of four people labouring for hours at every period end trying to control inventory, material allocation, labour and so on.” And then map to the IT All well and good, but you need a catalyst to effect this kind of change – as well as commitment from all parties and a quick win as both proof of concept and confidence builder. Otherwise, no matter how enthusiastic people are, it just will not happen. “Middle management,” he observes, “are not given the elbow room: they just have targets to meet in terms of output and costs.” How does all this map to IT? Robinson agrees it depends partly on your industry sector and manufacturing style. For example, he insists that in make-to-order ERP/MRP is not an appropriate driving engine. “You still need the ledgers; you’ve got to be able to raise invoices etc. But you don’t want to spend a lot of time and effort booking materials to jobs. ERP is for volume manufacturers; we run a visual electronic system instead, emulating paper systems.” He suggests top of the list for IT expenditure should be cementing in better, more efficient processes – with workflow, email and information sharing. “It’s incredibly affordable, and ongoing communication is key.” Beyond that, he notes the power of working with suppliers to link their manufacturing into yours. Apart from helping them to help themselves and thus you with business improvement programmes, it’s then worth integrating to whatever level adds value – which for many will entail some form of web-based supply chain event management (SCEM) and fulfilment (SCF) system. In any event, he recommends ‘best of breed’ packages for accounting, project management and the rest, “joined together via a ‘data pump’.” For him the imperative for IT is to build an integrated service environment. And when it’s all done? “You have to have another look – something will have changed and there will be additional requirements and some additional opportunities,” he opines. “You have to learn from your mistakes – and don’t give up: five or 10% is better than nothing. Engineering projects are ongoing processes – you can never afford to stop.”