PICME urges manufacturing improvement

Companies in the UK process industry sectors should invest in their staff and their use of performance improvement tools and techniques.

Companies in the UK process industry sectors could and should invest in their staff and their use of performance improvement tools and techniques in order to release the full potential of the businesses and the people in them, says Mark Lewis, Chief Executive of PICME, the Process Industries Centre for Manufacturing Excellence.

Since its launch in March 2001 by the DTI and the leading sector trade associations PICME has succeeded in saving substantial sums for every client it has worked with.

These currently total over GBP 70 million in immediate and longer-term benefits.

However, Lewis - speaking at the Chemical Industries Association Business Outlook conference on 29th January 2004 - notes that many UK process manufacturers have some way to go to bring their operations to world class levels.

"It remains the case that on average productivity improvements of between 20 and 30% are available.

This can give additional production or reduce waste and cost", he says.

"The key to unlocking this potential does not necessarily involve fresh cash or capital equipment.

It lies in learning how to work more effectively and to use established continuous improvement tools", says Lewis.

Sadly, PICME also sees many process-based companies hold a belief that operational and manufacturing improvement skills and techniques are not able to improve performance fast enough to be justified, given the financial pressures for short-term returns.

PICME believes that this is a mistaken view particularly with increasing supply chain pressures.

This view must be challenged if the UK sector is to have a sustainable future with increasing regulatory and commercial pressures.

This year sees PICME again involved in advising and promoting a number of manufacturing improvement awards for the process sector.

These include the Plastics Industry Awards (May 2004) and the new "most improved" manufacturing cateogry for the Chemical Industries Association (July 2004).

PICME's own client-based conference takes place on 8th and 9th June at Cranfield School of Management.

This latter event has been oversubscribed every year since its launch in 2002.

All PICME's initiatives are intended to support its central mission to raise the manufacturing fitness of all companies in the UK process manufacturing sector.

In practical terms this means raising capability and competence across the whole of a business operation.

For some companies it might mean sophisticated fine-tuning of operations to move to world class.

For others it might mean the beginning through manufacturing assessment and performance benchmarking on a journey of improvement.

Lewis says: "We believe that sustained improvement in operating fitness is available to all companies within the UK process sector - in chemicals, plastics, pharmaceuticals and other processes, large and small.

We, including the DTI, and the trade associations urge all process sector companies - in plastics, chemicals or other products - to see what this approach can do.

Let us give them a boost in this way".

PICME client-bookings are growing and the organisation is taking on more staff, expanding its capacity while developing speciality support in niche areas such as plastics, coatings, pharmaceuticals and batch/speciality chemicals.

PICME is focussing the additional resource on linking more closely to the industry regions and in adapting best practice from outside the sector to get further rapid improvement.

PICME was charged by the Government and the industry to add GBP 120 million to the profitability of the UK process manufacturing sector in redundant cost through increased productivity and reduced cost and is over half way to this target already.

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