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Branch news : Scotland - Achieving Lean Benefits through Change Management – a Visit to Rolls Royce, Inchinnan - Lean manufacturing Article
The article entitled: "Branch news : Scotland - Achieving Lean Benefits through Change Management – a Visit to Rolls Royce, Inchinnan" is in the Lean manufacturing Articles section of Operations Management Papers area...
ARTICLE DESCRIPTION: This joint event attracted 24 members from the IOM, IEE, CMI and competitiveScotland.com. The delegates were warmly welcomed by Rolls Royce, who had four staff on hand to help us during the talk and tour. Mark Richman, Andy Russell, Les Carey and Michael Gallagher were very able tour guides and RR organiser Pauline McGinty did a superb job of ensuring the evening went to plan.
MORE INFO: Branch news : Scotland - Achieving Lean Benefits through Change Management – a Visit to Rolls Royce, Inchinnan This joint event attracted 24 members from the IOM, IEE, CMI and competitiveScotland.com. The delegates were warmly welcomed by Rolls Royce, who had four staff on hand to help us during the talk and tour. Mark Richman, Andy Russell, Les Carey and Michael Gallagher were very able tour guides and RR organiser Pauline McGinty did a superb job of ensuring the evening went to plan. The purpose of the visit to Rolls Royce was to see in operation their newly developed site at Inchinnan, Renfrewshire, where the company are busy commissioning a new factory, bringing equipment and new working practices across from their Hillington site in Glasgow. Their rigor and discipline has enabled them to make significant performance improvements through their understanding of people and change management. Paul McFarlane, General Manager, gave a talk on “Achieving lean benefits through change management” and it was fascinating to listen to Paul describe the excitement and difficulties the company had to persuade the employees move from their dilapidated manufacturing facility built in the late 1930’s to the new site. Paul described how the Board wrestled with moving the operation to say Hungary or to some other area in the UK. The difficulty the RR team had was how to convince the highly skilled workforce to travel. In the end, a satisfactory compromise was reached when the employees agreed to move only 4 miles to the new location. However, this new facility also meant new working practices were necessary if the Roll Royce were to stay competitive. Paul also gave the attendees an overview of the history of RR from its early foundation to the new practices, which are now an integrated part of the new factory. After Paul’s talk, a tour of the cells followed, showing single piece flow, 5S and performance measurement systems that are now standard practice in RR. The tour guides provided illuminating descriptions of how the cells operated and how lean production flow minimised travel time and inventory flow throughout the factory floor. The uninterrupted size of the floor area was very impressive and provided a clear unobstructed view of all production cells and foundry processes, significantly improving the line of sight capability over the old factory. Cleanliness was also impressive and this was supported by the 5S processes RR employed throughout the site. Other significant changes were described by the RR team and one of these was the management and union’s agreement on engaging employees with staff conditions, resulting in a single status company. Rolls Royce provided the visitors with a very friendly and informative tour that impressed all who attended. Thanks to all concerned. Peter Ball, MIOM University of Strathclyde
PUBLISHER: Institute of Operations Management
Page number: 7 Word count: 450
Vol 31 - No 04 - June 2005
The article can be downloaded in full from the publisher's site i.e. the Institute of Operations Management.
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