A sell-out Lean Factory Tour event at Bentley Motors Crewe plant saw 60 senior manufacturing leaders from a wide range of industry sectors eager to see at first hand how this iconic brand had turned to lean manufacturing to ramp up its production ten-fold.

The packed auditorium at Bentley’s ‘Legends’ social, training and visitor facility heard Cranfield Business School Emeritus Professor Mike Sweeney chronicle British manufacturing’s progress along the road to hitting world class standards.

Bentley manufacturing director Peter Nixon related the Bentley story, through its romantic, aristocratic ‘Bentley Boys’ era via back-to-back Les Mans wins to present day product development and production as part of the Volkswagen industrial family.

As a precursor to the two-hour tour itself, Senior Production Systems Development Manager Shaun McNeil explained the company’s recruitment and training approach – the core of what it has dubbed The Bentley Production System.

Unfortunately we are only able to make available one of the presentations from the day, which is available for download below.

Lean Manufacturing Journey - Mike Sweeney (4.5MB)