Scottish chemicals producers welcome signpost

PICME - in association with Scottish Enterprise - delivered a strong case for manufacturing improvement in UK chemicals to a sell out audience near Glasgow, Scotland on Tuesday 15th March.

The Process Industries Centre for Manufacturing Excellence (PICME) - in association with Scottish Enterprise - delivered a strong case for manufacturing improvement in UK chemicals to a sell out audience near Glasgow, Scotland on Tuesday 15th March.

"We are delighted with the sell-out response in Scotland and the very positive audience reaction to the challenges faced by the industry there; encouragement for the things it's doing right and signposting of resources for higher productivity and competitiveness", said Mark Lewis, PICME Chief Executive.

PICME Associate Glyn Hughes with special responsibility for chemicals notes: "The business case for this work is unarguable - a message that many companies today have taken to heart".

From the outset, PICME's seminar booked out very quickly and was attended by the leading process manufacturers including BP, Johnson Matthey, Avecia, Ciba, Bausch and Lomb, GSK, GE Plastics, Rhodia, Polimeri Europa, Seal Sands, Diosynth DSM and other leading players in Scotland.

The Importance of the chemicals sector to the Scottish economy was first stressed by Charlene O'Connor from Scottish Enterprise.

She confirmed that support for the chemicals industry is high on the agenda of Scottish Enterprise and that SE is willing to work with the industry in order to fashion the right support.

Two strong messages emerged from the PICME seminar session on how to tackle low labour cost competition from the Far East.

Professor Roger Benson, Best Factory Judge and Senior Advisor with PICME showed that it was essential that UK chemicals companies: implement lean manufacturing ideas such as those promoted by the DTI via PICME; and look at the way in which they invest, making sure to deploy the best technology available, with a view to building the plant after next.

In both areas it was acknowledged that the industry has been sluggish to date in its practices and innovation but that there was still a time window - perhaps the next six years - for action and change and for the industry to innovate or liquidate.

Johnson Matthey explained their practices of manufacturing improvement and innovation from a user perspective, and how a PICME Masterclass had worked for them in starting a significant change in operating performance.

Simon Danks and Jason Barclay, PICME Improvement Engineers, then explained how PICME has been adapting lean manufacturing ideas for the chemicals sector.

The audience heard how such tools as value stream mapping are benefiting process manufacturers as well as engineering or assembly operations.

The capacity audience heard how the supply chain in Scotland for the oil and gas sector had developed itself through the Logic project and what lessons there were for the chemical industry.

PICME reports that despite good progress over the last 3 years the UK's chemicals and process industry still needs to increase its use of the lean manufacturing approach to make its manufacturing globally competitive.Most enterprises in UK chemicals manufacturing could still benefit from working that bit "smarter".

"As ever", says Mark Lewis, "the key to unlocking this potential is not about cash or capital".

"It's about people - helping them work more effectively - and using best practice in measurement and improvement", he adds.

Helping the industry identify best practice and achieve these improvements is the responsibility of PICME - the Government's industry forum (IF) responsible for the chemical and allied sectors of the UK economy.

PICME's role is to use a full range of manufacturing improvement techniques to improve the sector's performance through actions at company level and in the supply chain.

Since full establishment by the DTI PICME is on target with saving its process client companies a great number of redundant costs.

To date PICME has helped these companies secure first year savings of over GBP 22 million.

Examples of these client benefits through improved manufacturing methods include: increased output of between 10 and 100%; reduced waste of between 10 and 80%; reduced changeovers/clean-down times of between 40 and 80%; and reduced lead times and stock of between 50 and 75%.

All of the above has been achieved with minimal financial expenditure with the PICME maxim of working "smarter not harder" and with maximum proactive ownership culture.

The PICME client list include Avecia, AH Marks, Akzo Nobel, Associated Octel, British Vita, Fisher Scientific, Genzyme, Jotun Paints, Novartis, Ocular Sciences, Rohm and Haas, and Wrafton Laboratories.

"The focus for PICME's chemical clients is increasingly on working in greater depth and across more production and other functions in order to optimise all the available gains and savings", says Hughes.

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

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 in order to move to world-class competitiveness.

For others it might mean the beginning of their improvement beginning with measurement, manufacturing assessment and performance benchmarking.

Among PICME initiatives for 2005 is the launch of a specific Batch Process Improvement Toolkit in 2005.

"This is designed to help companies resolve difficult choices between process and practices improvement", says Lewis.

"Our tool will allows the use of all the client's manufacturing plant data and will then focus scarce and expansive resources on the right problem".

"It will also allow consistent measurement of OEE across operations without subjective assumptions of output".

Other PICME initiatives for the near future include: collaboration with Crystal Faraday on less wasteful processes linked to our focus on less wasteful practices; work in the food sector to learn more about how this sector has developed responsive manufacturing to meet supply chain pressures; practical industry supply chains work to show how this can improve overall responsiveness in the sector; and development of a plant maintenance Masterclass to address this key issue for lean operations in process sector.

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