The SC21 Journey Gathers Pace! 20/08/2010

During the first week of June the company was visited by Jess Yates, Jon Anderson and Kevin Greenslade from the AgustaWestland supply chain development team.  The purpose of the two day visit was to carry out the first phase of our undertakings on our journey towards SC21 recognition.  The AgustaWestland team carried out an appraisal on the company called Manufacturing Excellence which required them to have detailed discussions with the senior management team on one day, followed by a detailed look around our shop floor on the other.  The exercise looked closely at LEAN manufacturing and rated the company against what is considered to be industry best practice with Ford achieving a score of 296. At the end of the process the AgustaWestland team provided feed back on potential areas of 'opportunity' and these have been woven into the company wide Continuous Sustainable Improvement Plan (CSIP) which is now on display on the shop floor.

During the audit Jess Yates commented that he felt a 'real buzz' around the company which is testament to the many changes and hard work which have been going on in all areas.  Jess then returned to the company on August 5^thwith Rob Dickenson to carry out two awareness briefings on the next two stages of SC21 which we will be embarking upon shortly.  The briefings centre on Business Excellence which is the strategic/management equivalent to Manufacturing Excellence and also the Relationship Management Review, a process for analysing and strengthening customer relationships.

You will continue to see more and more activity around SC21 and for anyone that is interested in learning more about what is involved please approach me as I am more than happy to talk through the process.  Look out for continued updates as the week's progress and our target remains to achieve Silver recognition by March 31^st2011.

                                                                                       Peter Batey - Commercial Manager