They’re called ‘associates’, not operators, at Jaguar Land Rover Solihull. “They’re not operating, they’re owning a process on a workgroup level,” explains Nigel Blenkinsop, operations director at the company’s flagship plant. “I’ve never been keen on imposing a hierarchy on a workforce. I may be a senior leader on the site, but at the end of the day they are the people who add the value to the car. We put a lot of responsibility on them, and they deserve as much respect as anyone else – if not more.”
It’s this level of respect for the workforce that has helped propel JLR into one of the UK’s manufacturing success stories. A company that just seven years ago was on the brink of collapse at the height of recession, earlier this year JLR overtook Nissan to become the UK’s biggest carmaker by volume. A lot of this success, of course, is down to the £11bn investment by Tata, JLR’s Indian parent company. “The stewardship of the Jaguar Land Rover business by Tata has been very powerful and made a real difference,” acknowledges Blenkinsop. “Tata has enabled us to realise our potential. Jaguar Land Rover has since reinvested its own profits back into our business which funds future growth. Overall JLR has invested £12bn in the last five years, enabling us to more than double sales and employment – and triple our turnover. Solihull is a reflection of this: we have invested over £2bn in recent years, doubled our workforce and trebled volume.”
It’s the people, though, that really make Solihull tick. Over 11,000 members of staff work at the plant, over three shifts, five days a week. This hasn’t always been the case. “The new Body Shop 3 is a state-of-the-art facility, and you can see the investment we’ve made in there,” says Blenkinsop. “We have to make the same investment in people – turning people who are new to the automotive industry into ones who are ambassadors not just for this plant but for the whole company.”
Apprentice power
JLR are one of the country’s leading providers of apprenticeships, with over 850 taken on company-wide in the past five years. Blenkinsop is under no illusion as to the benefits a well-run apprenticeship programme can provide. “They think in a 21st century way instead of my 20th century way,” he jokes. “When you give them a base and unleash talent, it’s amazing what can be achieved. I can only imagine how exciting it must be to start your career at a company like this at this point in time – having laid out in front of you not only the opportunity the business presents, but also the challenges it is looking to put you through and the development you can expect.
“The investment in graduates and apprentices is critical. We know through the growth we’ve had that it’s very difficult to get the right technical competences that we need, and growing that from the bottom up with a very strong focus on the technologies that we employ operationally is the best way of creating a strong technical core to your business.”
It’s not just about apprentices, however. Jaguar Land Rover stands out in that it provides opportunities for former members of the armed forces to join the team, something that Blenkinsop says is hugely beneficial. “The service people we have here bring a level of leadership insight into the business that is quite refreshing,” he explains. “In many ways those people think a bit differently to those who have been conditioned within this industry. That brings a really interesting balance to the leadership team both on the frontline and at boardroom level.”
Balancing volumes and quality
Today, Solihull produces both the Jaguar XE saloon and F-Pace SUV. The latter of these has become the best-selling vehicle in Jaguar’s history, with over 30,000 vehicles sold within the first six months of its launch. Over 80% of all cars built at the plant are exported around the world, with the USA and Middle East amongst the most popular markets. How, then, does JLR avoid the pitfalls that come with higher-volume manufacturing – specifically, a drop in quality? “We’re in the business of giving the customers what they want and aspire towards, and we have to be careful about volumes from a brand point of view to make sure there is a level of exclusivity from customer to customer,” explains Blenkinsop. “That’s one of the key challenges we’re facing in Solihull: balancing that with some pretty serious volumes – about two or three times what we were doing just three years ago.”
The challenge shouldn’t be anything that fazes Blenkinsop too much. His history with JLR started just four years ago, when he was tasked with setting up a new powertrain operations division, Module 1, in Wolverhampton. “That was a great success and a fantastic opportunity, but it was only really about getting match-fit for this role,” he says. One of the key sticking-points he has found in moving from a brand-new greenfield site with a new workforce to Solihull is the “slower-burn culture change”. Convincing a legacy team to take on board some of the ideas Blenkinsop and the rest of the senior management team has meant that the very top of the company had to open up. “Part of my approach to developing [the business] is the outward-facing responsibilities I have – going into the business, solving problems, being seen by the associates as being hands-on,” Blenkinsop explains. “We’re not doing this in the ‘ivory tower’ of our offices, we’re doing that at the shopfloor, work group level. I can’t get out and learn the name of every member of staff here – although I’d love to – but I do know all of this issues that affect them. I’m out on the floor doing gemba walks every day. The most exciting bit of my job is the process confirmation part – I’d much rather be out there looking at cars being built than in a conference room looking at figures.”
That openness goes a long way, continues Blenkinsop. “The approach we have taken is to be very transparent about the bookends of our business plan – the volume, the cost per unit and how that impacts on the business, the challenges around launching a new vehicle, and so on. We’ve engaged the workforce throughout. There’s no secret information hidden in my little black book. It’s about everyone understanding the challenges we are up against, and helps with engagement on what we’re trying to achieve and how we’re growing.”
Encouraging the employees
Encouraging the workforce to come up with their own ideas has been key to the company’s recent success. “The priority is for our team to follow the processes for their area,” says Blenkinsop. “We adopt Kaizen for continuous improvement where they can suggest ways to improve that process to their group leader. We host the Solihull Excellence Awards which recognise the individuals who have gone above and beyond across the safety, quality, delivery, cost, people and environment agendas.”
In 2015, the company launched Team Improvement Circles (TICs) in the Body Shop, encouraging members of staff – at all levels – to share ideas. Blenkinsop is delighted with their success: “The quality of engagement we got from our associates was excellent. It has helped provide a significant boost to the business. That’s something that excites me about the demographic here at Solihull; we have a great blend of youth and experience. We have quite a few guys here who have been through some pretty tough times with the company and don’t want to go back. They are as focused on quality and commitment as the newer members of staff, which is great to see.”
TICs are JLR’s take on Quality Circles, and put together a team of up to six employees who are tasked with finding and implementing a solution for a work-based improvement idea. The employees are given basic training, and the best ideas get entered into a company-wide competition, judged by JLR’s senior management. From here, the overall UK winners will visit JLR’s newest plant, in China, and teach the staff there about the TIC they devised. This year, 32 teams made it through to final judging, and the ideas were estimated to have created a saving of £5.3 million per year across the whole company. “This bottom-up approach is the only way to do it if you want to be sustainable about your improvement,” says Blenkinsop. “When you’ve gone through such an exponential growth as we have, it becomes about driving CI and maintaining our competitive position.”
And employee feedback doesn’t end there. The company runs an annual engagement survey, called Pulse, to allow every member of staff to have their say. There are also improvement boards dotted around the entire site allowing for more immediate problems to be addressed. “It’s a great way to open up dialogue, but it’s only the start,” stresses Blenkinsop. “There’s nothing better for me than when I get stopped on the side of the production line and someone asks me a tricky question – which is becoming more frequent. Staff are becoming more knowledgeable thanks to the CI methods we have put in place. If I don’t know an answer, I’ll tell them, go and find out and get back to them. That’s all about building trust and having a team that is engaged.”
Equality rules the roost at Solihull. Every idea is encouraged and listened to. “We aren’t hierarchical. We don’t run based on the number of stripes you have on your shirt. We run on the capability that we can offer to allow our teams to improve themselves.”
Growing the brand
That improvement is going to need to remain as the Solihull plant, and the wider JLR brand, continues to grow. Blenkinsop is pragmatic about the challenges he faces in the future: “Wherever you sell cars, globally, customers are becoming more sophisticated and demanding, and not just from a quality point of view. They want the latest technology and design as well. If you’re spending the amount of money that JLR’s customers do, you expect to be given the very best, and it’s our job to find a way of delivering that through the production system.”
At least the factory is prepared. In Body Shop 3, the newest part of the site, Jaguar XEs and F-Paces are built side-by-side on a highly reconfigurable production line; in Final Assembly 2, where the finishing touches are put on the vehicles, three different models can be built on the same line, providing a level of flexibility that is going to be crucial as Solihull continues on its upward trajectory. But, ultimately, the plant will be nothing without its people, as Blenkinsop sums up: “The quality operating system, the launch operating system, the manufacturing operating system – they’re all in the middle of everything we’re doing, but it’s all about improving the capabilities of the people, who can then improve the capabilities of the operating systems.”
Nigel Blenkinsop will be speaking at Works Management’s Manufacturing Management Show at the Ricoh Arena, Coventry, on 24 November.
