Trio earn 'Lean Green Belts' to fight waste

(NTA article written by UK Skills for the Glasgow Herald, December 05)

Three people trained as ‘green belts’ – not in the martial arts but in Japanese ‘Lean’ manufacturing principles – and waged a successful fight against waste.

The trio, who work for global electronics manufacturer Solectron Scotland Ltd, of Queensferry Road, Dunfermline, brought a host of improvements to the plant. And their training has earned their employer and the two training providers behind the course, a Scottish Training Award at the finals of the National Training Awards 2005.

The training companies, Ross International Ltd of Milngavie Enterprise Centre, Bearsden, Glasgow and ibp academy of Gallowgate Lane, Largs, Ayrshire, had already developed two Lean Black Belts at the Dunfermline site.

Solectron decided to speed up and increase the efforts on waste reduction and productivity improvements to maintain its competitive position. So it decided to create Lean Green Belts – choosing three more junior staff to start from scratch and become experts in Lean.

The programme was launched last year, with Dunfermline-based Cameron Shearer, Operations Excellence Team Leader; Tom Callan, Operations Excellence Engineer and Gordon Irvine, Supply Chain Planning Manager being selected for training. They were joined by five Solectron Europe employees, for a week-long programme of theory and practical work, including ‘live’ examples on the shopfloor.

The participants were then given a four-month assignment to identify opportunities for waste elimination using Lean practices, plan activities and evaluate their effectiveness. Among the projects completed by the Green Belts, were changes to workflow to reduce travel time and stock levels; improved productivity and yields; removal of unnecessary operations.

Between them they came up with more than £450,000 worth of savings – a return on investment of over 100 to 1. In March, the trio received the Institute of Leadership and Management Lean Green Belt award.

Alan Nicoll, Dunfermline Lean Black Belt and Site Functional Excellence Leader, said: “All participants are now steeped in Lean thinking, and apply it at every possible turn. Two of them are now employed full-time working with me as the Lean Black Belt.”

The company was so impressed with the results it ran a second programme for all the European General Managers and is in the process of rolling out the training across Europe starting with another 15 in Dunfermline. And the two training partners have developed programmes at White, Yellow and Master Black Belt levels, and are working with Napier University to link the awards to masters level degrees and beyond.

"Overall, the programme exceeded expectations…a means to turn a real problem into a roaring success and a team capable not just of competing but being held up as an exemplar to both Solectron and the broader global business community,” added Alan.