When it comes to any type of improvement, a good culture is crucial. After all, your efforts won’t get you very far if your overall business environment isn’t right. Continuous improvement flourishes in a culture where people can openly discuss how they feel and share their thoughts when things don’t work out as planned. In… Read more

For a business to be successful, it must never stop improving. Yet such continuous improvement is far from easy – in fact, 95% of lean implementations fail to sustain. This is something our Leadership and Enterprise Excellence Coach, George Donaldson, has experienced first hand. Here, he provides an overview of how the Shingo Model helps… Read more

Believe it or not, problem-solving is a problem in itself. Manufacturers have a habit of making it far more complex than it needs to be – and that’s why most have many problems, rather than just a few. But this doesn’t have to be the case. Problem-solving can be tackled head-on. Here, The Manufacturing Institute’s… Read more

Just 11% of UK employees feel engaged at work. This includes those currently working for businesses with dedicated performance management systems. So, what’s the issue? The most likely cause is that managers and leaders have fallen into one or two common performance management traps. In this article, The Manufacturing Institute’s Leadership and Enterprise Excellence Coach,… Read more

‘Keep it simple’. ‘Less is more’. These phrases are often uttered in businesses, but it’s quite rare that they’re followed. In fact, reality shows we don’t value simplicity – instead, we appear to hold complexity in much higher regard. This is despite the fact that a 2019 Deloitte Insights survey revealed that 81% of leaders… Read more

Today’s popular mantra is that you need a good culture to be successful. Culture, we’re told, is essentially everything. This has been echoed by various leading thinkers within our industry for the last 30 to 40 years. But have we gone too far? Have we instead strayed towards developing ‘cults’ rather than ‘cultures’? The Manufacturing… Read more

Employers often feel too embarrassed to praise, recognise or appreciate the work of their employees. Today, this must change. What we now need is humility on the part of our leaders. People development (of which recognition plays a big part) is so important. Without it, businesses fall behind. The Manufacturing Institute’s Business Excellence Coach, Steve… Read more

The manufacturing industry is facing a significant challenge: a shift in demographics. Historically, the ‘baby boomers’ (ages 53 to 63) made up the majority of the workforce. But there’s a ‘silent tsunami’ coming. We’re facing the biggest retirement wave we’ll ever experience. The skills of baby boomers will be washed out of the industry over… Read more

Most manufacturing workforces are currently made up of ‘baby boomers’ (those born between 1946 and 1964). They have extensive knowledge and experience, but this begs the question: what happens when they retire? A soaring skills gap could well be on the cards. However, if you act now, you can harness their expertise for future generations…. Read more

Why don’t we plan? Because it’s more exciting to just see what happens, right? Or perhaps you’re too busy dealing with today to even consider tomorrow. Maybe you simply can’t get the leadership team to agree or don’t have the right data available. Whatever your reason, you need to have a plan – and you… Read more