Steve: Manufacturing Specialist Drives Lasting Productivity Improvements

A manufacturing and operations specialist with deep experience both in permanent and interim roles, Steve has delivered companies major and lasting change with the productivity improvements he’s recommended and implemented. Employers include Dage Precision Industries, Hozelock, ICI, BMW, Corning Cables, Dowty Engineering, and GEC Telecommunications.

Disaster Recovery at Electronics Manufacturer Reduces Overdue Orders by 90%: Following a major fire in the factory, Steve was hired to resolve large problems plaguing an electronics manufacturer, including overdue orders and surplus inventory. Concentrating on improving output, reducing inventory, securing integrity of supply chain, restoring profitability and rebuilding and fitting out the factory, all targets were met: Overdue orders were reduced by 90%, output improved by 35%, inventory reduction was above target, and WIP was reduced by 50%.

Turnaround of Failed Stock Control System: At a A$320 million garden products manufacturer Steve was retained as an interim manager to remedy the failed implementation of a major warehouse stock control system. At his arrival, lost business and overdue orders were running at an all-time high. In just 3 months, overdue orders were eliminated, stock accuracy dramatically improved, and the business stabilised.

Enhancing Productivity at Cable Manufacturer: Retained as Interim Manufacturing Manager to raise productivity, reduce waste, and increase productivity at a major fibre optic cable manufacturer, Steve accomplished numerous objectives, favourably and substantially impacting the company's profitability. Successfully implementing his own recommendations, Steve reduced waste by 3%, saving more than A$8.8 million in the first year, and increased on-time deliveries from 68% to 99.6%. His solutions increased manufacturing output capacity by 250% with only a modest (12) increase in headcount. He introduced MBO (management by objective) methodologies and created self-managed process improvement teams. Steve's contract was extended repeatedly so that he could spread the same methodologies into all parts of the business. At the end of his 20-month assignment, Steve nominated and groomed an internal person to succeed him in the role.

Coaching and Mentoring Leads to Plant Cultural Transformation: Steve acted as trainer and coach responsible for developing group working and continuous improvement processes amongst the production line management in an automotive assembly area. Over a 9-months period Steve helped coach the 81 supervisors working in the body-in-white area, where the car body shell gets produced. The focus of Steve's work was helping them gather, share and apply business information more effectively with their teams, and helping them create an environment where all staff feel able to put forward and apply their own ideas. As a result of the coaching programme supported by Steve and his colleagues from Executives Online, output soared by 40% and the absenteeism that had previously plagued the facility fell dramatically.

Chemical Production Process Improvements Save A$22 Million: At a major specialty chemical producer, Steve set up and facilitated Continuous Improvement Teams and processes that identified A$22 million worth of savings to the business. He designed and delivered many training sessions for all levels of staff, running the CI Team meetings, resolving personality issues, re-designing the organisational structure and promoting the team working culture. The company adopted this process to drive through all future operational and business improvement activities, and now use a new set of KPI measures for the business, which arose out of Steve's work.

Turns Loss-Making into Profitability and Productivity in 6 Months: Working with a building products manufacturer specialising in timber and joinery products, Steve increased productivity by 26% over a 6 month period, reduced WIP by 43% over a 6 month period, reduced inventory by 51% over a 6 month period, met or exceeded profitability targets each month for 6 consecutive months where previously the business had been loss making for 2 years, and reduced manufacturing lead time by an average of 40%.