Improving productivity through the adoption of lean manufacturing practices could help boost inward investment in Dundee, a major industry conference is hearing today.
More than 100 delegates, including representatives of major multinational corporations including BAE Systems, BT and Alere, gathered at Dundee College for the first major symposium organised by Dundee Lean Network (DLN).
The group was founded by Tokheim Dundee operations manager Steve Boyd after seeing how much his own company had benefited from going down the lean manufacturing route.
“The bottom line for Tokheim is that through lean manufacturing we have the ability to continually improve our processes year on year,” Mr Boyd said.
“Being able to engage with everyone in the workforce and bringing some form of improvement to a part of the job they are doing is a way of maintaining manufacturing performance.”
Tokheim has manufactured fuel pump and forecourt electronic equipment from its base at West Pitkerro industrial estate since 1995 and has a 350-strong workforce.
The plant was an early adopter of the Japanese kaizen continual improvement process and Mr Boyd said lean manufacturing principles remained key to its strategy.
“Today our site is the most competitive within the group and the challenge for us is to maintain this position,” he said.
“We must continue to lead and outperform our other manufacturing locations within the group such as India, China and Brazil.
“Lean thinking and lean methodologies is central to our strategy for growth.”
Around half of the delegates attending the conference are from manufacturing firms but Mr Boyd said he was pleased that other types of businesses were also taking an interest.
“Lean is about focusing on value-added activity and removing non value-added activities,” he said.
“If every organisation is committed to continually improving, then our organisations as a whole will be better.”
The keynote address at the conference will be made by Professor Peter Hines, co-founder of the Lean Enterprise Research Centre at Cardiff University, and there will also be contributions from Steve Allan of Tayside Contracts, Laura Lucas of Inspirential and Ian McCormick, north of Scotland regional lead with the Scottish Manufacturing Advisory Service (Smas).
DLN hopes the conference will put lean manufacturing on the map and help push it towards its goal of having 100 local firms engaged with the process within five years.
“Lean is a well tried and tested technique which all of the world’s major manufacturers use in one form or another,” Mr McCormick said.
“It is a proven way to improve employee engagement and improve the performance of a business.
“If we are going to support Dundee and help it to get that competitive advantage we have to deploy all of the tools at our disposal and Lean is one of them.
“Since Smas started we have done something like 91 business improvement projects in Tayside but there is room to do much more.
“It is all about giving Dundee that competitive advantage and getting back up the competitiveness rankings.
“Lean is applicable to companies of all sizes. In Smas we have worked with relatively small start-up businesses with turnover of £100,000 per year to large multinationals.”