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Vol 28 - No 04 - May 2002 Lean Manufacturing at Boots Contract Manufacturing, Airdrie John Grant and his colleagues on Wednesday 10 April 2002 welcomed a delegation of IOM members to share their recent experience of implementing lean manufacturing at the site. The Boots Contract Manufacturing site at Airdrie in Scotland employs around 600 people and specialises in the manufacture of own label and branded cosmetics for Boots. During the visit, John provided an overview of the manufacturing business at Airdrie followed by an inspiring presentation on how they have approached lean manufacturing at the site. The lean approach adopted by Boots at Airdrie places great emphasis on people and has been received extremely well by people at all levels within the organisation. They summarised the key factors which influenced the acceptance and adoption of the Lean principles as: Changing management behavior Encouraging personal risk taking Managers letting go and trusting their teams Dealing with the needs and want of the majority Mutual respect and value. These people oriented factors have been reinforced with principles such as 5S, visual management, key performance indicators (KPIs) and management by facts. Following John's presentation, a factory tour gave the opportunity to see the work of various lean teams and enabled the visitors to have a chat with the team leaders. During the discussions, the enthusiasm of the teams and their leaders was clearly evident. All teams were able to demonstrate considerable improvements in their areas/processes using simple but effective visual aids which were publicly displayed in the factory. In short, this was a stimulating and thought provoking visit which could be summarised as: People make things happen if we get them on board and give them the space and responsibility to make things happen. Keeping it simple so everybody understands what is happening. Many thanks to John and his colleagues at Boots,Airdrie for laying on an excellent event. And PS,the sandwiches were also excellent. Umit Bititci,FIOM Page number: 7 Word count: 280 Related Topics: Lean operations
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