Recognition

Shingo success for first two UK businesses

BAE Systems’ Samlesbury site and conservatory manufacturer Ultraframe have joined the world class business elite by winning the prestigious Shingo Bronze Medallion for operational excellence.

The Lancashire based businesses are the first two UK organisations to achieve recognition in the international award process, which has been cited as the ‘Nobel Prize’ of operational excellence by Business Week.

The businesses were presented with their medallions in Manchester at the UK/US Shingo Summit – a week-long conference dedicated to lean and operational excellence - featuring world leading authorities and practitioners at the cutting edge of business transformation from both sides of the Atlantic.

Nigel Blenkinsop, BAE Systems Samlesbury site director, said: “In 2004 we established a Lean Learning Academy at Samlesbury and the challenge now is to really embed lean principles not only in our culture but also into our supply chain. The Shingo prize process provides a way to benchmark our progress against companies across the globe and gives us feedback that can help focus improvements in core manufacturing and business processes.  I’m delighted that we have been awarded a Bronze Medallion at out first attempt and I look forward to building on this achievement in the months ahead.”

Mike Price, Chief Executive of Ultraframe, said: “We have made some significant progress on our lean journey over the last four years and are always looking for opportunities to critically review the progress we have made and identify opportunities for further improvement. We were awarded a Best Factory Award in 2007 – winning Best Engineering Plant. Since then we have worked hard to close the gaps highlighted in the benchmarking report. Challenging for the Shingo Prize has been an excellent opportunity to once again review our position and stretch our lean achievements to achieve even higher levels of operational excellence. We are delighted to have been awarded a Bronze Medallion and look forward to receiving the feedback report. This year has been a challenging year for us, like most other businesses, and it’s great to receive external recognition that we are doing the right things”.

Presenting the awards, Robert Miller, Executive Director, Shingo Prize for Operational Excellence, USA, said: “These two businesses are shining examples of excellence that truly understand the principles of lean transformation and are applying it to all their business processes. The empowerment of their people and the culture of continuous improvement that they both demonstrate is particularly impressive.”

Added Julie Madigan, Chief Executive of The Manufacturing Institute: “It is less than nine months since BAE Systems and Ultraframe first challenged for the Shingo Prize, so it is a fantastic achievement that they have achieved the bronze medallion in this short space of time. They can now continue to use the Shingo Prize framework to achieve even higher levels of quality, customer satisfaction, cost performance and delivery, and we are certain that they will both succeed in claiming the ultimate Shingo Prize”.