Productivity at a Wednesfield-based engineering company has increased – and costs reduced – after staff attended a new business improvement programme offered by City of Wolverhampton College.
Six staff from Jenks and Cattell Ltd, in Neachells Lane – which specialises in metal stamping, laser fabrication and welding – attended a three-month Inspiring Innovation and Creativity programme, aimed at employees in a supervisory, management or leadership role who want to learn skills to enable them to develop new ideas and create culture change within the organisation.
The programme of six one-day workshops, delivered by improvement practitioners from the college, covered business excellence and customer expectations, business improvement processes including Lean Six Sigma, effective team working, problem solving, project management, process mapping, quality assurance, data analysis, and capability and control.
Following the programme, the team presented improvements made in the laser fabrication and welding section to Mike O’Shea, managing director at Jenks and Cattell, and Fiona Latter, programme manager at West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA).
The team outlined the business benefits of what they had introduced in the section, including the implementation of a sustainable workplace organisation platform and improvements to the manufacturing process which has led to higher productivity and cost reductions.
Mr O’Shea said: “The presentation from the six team members, along with the working example of a business management tool, went a long way to convincing me and the rest of the team that they understood the values in the course and that they were confident and competent in rolling out further best practice across the business.
“As an SME with limited resources it is imperative that these core competencies are built into everyday job roles, creating the opportunity for business excellence to become a growing part of our culture.
“We now have a cross-functional team of six that talk the same language and my commitment is to give them the time to develop these skills, helping them to develop as individuals and potentially future business benefits”.
The free programme – funded by WMCA – will now be rolled to benefit more businesses and is open to anyone in a leadership, supervisory or management role who lives in the West Midlands.
For further details of the course and to book a place call 01952 610101 or email ptic@wolvcoll.ac.uk
