Innovate or die? - the brink of a revolution
January 10, 2009 by david.evanson
I’ve just been reading an article in the Food Manufacturer (Rick Pendrous, 02/01/09) in which he claims that supermarkets such as Tesco are allegedly seeking as much as a 5% price drop off products such as ready meals and other core products.
The article states “Tesco are very demanding,” said one chilled food supplier that was asked to cut its prices. “We will end up very wounded indeed.”
Are you reading this and thinking similarly? Perhaps you are already being challenged on your costs and have made the first step of laying off your temporary labour, but still being requested to hit targets and improve efficiencies. If this is the case then news that the supermarkets are going to be challenging your sales teams for further price cuts….which you are likely to be requested to deliver.
In my opinion this leaves many manufacturers with a choice: Innovate (And improve). Or die.
In my belief this environment could well lead UK manufacturing into a new era of innovation. Over the next 12-36 months i believe we will some of the things we will experience are:
- Greater demands for output
- Greater constraints on labour costs
- Greater focus on ROI
- Pressure from retaillers to drop cost
- Greater constraints on capital expenditure
Resulting in:
- Any sites that act too slowely will be shut
- Any sites that choose not to act will be shut
- Major changes for the sites that want to survive
If you want to survive expect:
- Change. Lots and lots of change
- A resurgence in lean and CI implementation
- More continuous improvement projects being implemented
- Greater focus on KPI’s and numerical performance
- Greater emphasis on improvement
- Individuals held more accountable for delivering change rather than just ‘doing the day job’
- People management skills will be at a premium
- Your site will introduce improvement projects with greater emphasis on internal team delivery
- To be involved with consultants and CI experts to support projects
If you’re slow adopting these changes my belief is that times will get very difficult…and you may not last the year, or even the next 6 months.
Many of us will have heard of “The Toyota Way” of production, when will you start to create “Your way”, and what will it contain?
The end result? I believe we are on the brink of a CI revolution in the UK. I believe that over the next 3 years we may well witness if not some new techniques, then some new ways of applying age-old techniques. I can’t wait to be involved!!!
Reflections on 2 days at WTG Conference in Rotterdam
November 18, 2008 by david.evanson
Whilst i’m sat in Rotterdam airport reflecting on 2 days at the World Trade Group 7th Annual World Food Technology and Innovation conference (http://manufacturing.foodinnovate.com/) i thought it may be worth reflecting on some of the lessons/thoughts that have come to me from the past few days.
Over the last couple of days it’s been an absolute pleasure talking to a number of Food and Drink Manufacturers’ about the issues and opportunities that exist within their European operations. Specifically a number of themes came through for me:
1. Obviously without surprise product cost is an extremely high priortity across every sector. The majority of manufacturers are experiencing some downturn in business recenly but nothing anywhere as large as that affecting our colleauges in Automotive sectors.
2. A large number of businesses have started their own internal development programmes and a lot of people are talking about ‘lean’, ‘TPM’ and ‘Toyota’.
3. When exploring these strategies it would appear that most businesses are choosing to cherry-pick particular elements of these programmes for implementation in the site, rather than wholesale adaptation and adoption. The message i got here is that “we’re not Japanese automotive manufacturers so we have to pick what works for us”.
4. There is a broad recognition that data and good quality information is key to delivering these programmes. I had great pleasure in showing our XL800 system to a number of manufacturers as a means of collecting this data.
5. A lot of suppliers are talking about Energy Sustainability, but i didn’t hear this back from many of the manufacturers.
6. In the session hosted by ATS International we had a great discussion about people involvement in change programmes. Specifically the value of creating improvement pilots and ensuring that outcomes of these programmes are communicated. We also explored how expectations need to be managed if the desired outcome is sustainable results….people can get impatient when results aren’t immediate. The key message was still - talk to your teams, get their advice, filter with data, and act act act.
7. Teams need to be motivated to improve - a real burning platform creates real results.
8. The point above really re-inforces something that one of my mentors says is the secret to manufacturing improvement: “Doing simple things to an exceptionally high level”. Whilst many sessions debated the value of various lean tools, the message for me is a clear - just decide what you’re doing and get on with it!
9. Oh and everyone is measuring OEE!
A very interesting and enjoyable 2 days. My thanks to all those i met and shared ideas with me.
