Explain how lean manufacturing applies to the case. Determine how lean thinking contributed to Unipart's approach.

Case Study of Best Practice in Make: Unipart Sarah Pickford Business Development Manager, Unipart Manufacturing Expert Practices, Oxford, UK Unipart rolls out lean manufacturing The Unipart Group is an employee-owned international provider of logistics and manufacturing solutions specialised in lean manufacturing and the auto- motive sector. The Assignment. Design and implement a lean programme in over ten factories in six countries for the world's leading manufacturer of welding products. The Results. In the areas of focused effort the tangible benefits to the client included: 80% reduction in inventory 80% reduction in change over times 70% reduction in lead-time 20% improvement in quality 10% increase in productivity The Unipart approach. A key task in this assignment was to design a way of introducing the most relevant lean tools into every factory within 12 months. These tools included: the visual monitoring of performance within teams; identifying and prioritising problems and issues and then solving them within the team in a structured way in order to deliver clear benefits and results. The most difficult aspect of this challenge was to find a way of quickly engaging the operational people on the shop floor who had no previous experience of lean and whose first language was not English.

The solution was to deliver in all ten factories, minute by minute, day by day coaching to Production Managers and Team Leaders. Within 2 weeks Unipart constructed a highly skilled practical team of coaches drawn from the operations managers and team leaders within their own businesses. This group of expert practitioners was then each deployed into the various factories around the world, for a period of 4 months. What did Unipart achieve? During the 4-month period in each location, over 50 people were trained in problem solving, communication cells and workplace audits. Over 100 problems were identified with over 50 of these being solved at root cause and subsequent changes implemented. Forty problem-solving circles were completed and over 20 local facilitators were trained to enable this approach to continue. As a result, the improved operational effectiveness and efficiency enabled Unipart's client to improve its customer service to the extent that an external research company found that our client was regarded as the best welding consumables supplier on customer service in the world.