If the general consensus at the March 2008 Lean Manufacturing Summit in Derby prevails widely out there, UK manufacturing is definitely winning the war against waste.

The Summit was attended and addressed in pretty equal numbers by those at the beginning, middle and advanced stages of their own lean journeys.

Langer UK operations director Peter Taylor told an inspirational ‘Five day lean’ story.

Langer makes unromantic ankle and foot orthoses, orthotics and orthopaedic shoes.

He set out a plan of what he believed could be achieved.

On Day One, the ‘lean team’ was established, a lean simulation undertaken and a start was made on collecting and analysing data.

Days Two and Three were spent on work analysis and the working methods of every section of the manufacturing facility were videoed.

Day Four was about the elimination of waste – “anything that doesn’t add value”.

Day Five was trials day.

The results have been impressive. Productivity is up by around two thirds; work in progress is down from 26 days to between four and five; delivery adherence has soared from 43 to 98 per cent. Technicians beg never to go back to the old ways, ideas for continuous improvement are coming from the shop floor and customer feedback has been positive.

Equally impressive are the outcomes so far of New Balance Athletic Shoes continuing lean journey. They include a 35 per cent productivity improvement, a £1.5 million positive cost variance, a 35 per cent space saving and a right-first-time figure of 99.7 per cent.

John Vigar, continuous improvement manager at the Norfolk sportscar maker and automotive engineering contractor Lotus has 296 of its people registered for NVQ training and put a value of £250,000 on the savings his students will have made from applying their continuous improvement projects to the line by the year end.

At Bentley, senior production systems development manager Shaun McNeil sees training as the very essence of the Bentley Production System that provided the foundation for increasing production volume ten-fold, using the tools, techniques and Lean philosophy practised at Toyota.

Sophisticated manpower planning, recruitment and redeployment, production training and development, and kaizen continuous improvement activities provide the power that runs the Crewe plant and have established it as a benchmarking facility for lean manufacturing at its parent, Volkswagen.

“Day in, day out, the work force has got to be engaged in where the business is going,” urged McNeil. “It’s all right telling them, but they have to see it working.”