Mentoring for Growth – New Programme Will Drive Further Productivity Gains

We are rightly proud of our recent track record. Over the last five years, AE Aerospace has more than doubled productivity and seen a seven-fold increase in sales. We still have a lot to learn and when it comes to driving future growth, we’ll seek assistance wherever we can. We recently embarked on the Mentoring for Growth programme and over the coming months will get valuable guidance from our BAE Systems mentor on the next stage of our journey.

The Be the Business Mentoring for Growth programme is designed to pair leaders of ambitious SMEs with an experienced business mentor to help them through expansion and improvement challenges. We were involved in a pilot during 2018 and now that the programme has been launched nationally, we have the opportunity to learn from a director of BAE Systems.

Raising productivity

The UK fails to punch its weight in international productivity league tables. If the government’s industrial strategy is to improve our standing on the global stage, then boosting output per employee is critical. Trials have demonstrated that one of the best ways to address the productivity gap is by teaming up proactive SMEs with individuals from best-in-class businesses.

We’ve come a long way in the last few years and we currently generate ￡75,000 of sales per head. That’s quite impressive. Yet world-class businesses surpass ￡100,000 per head and so we’re aiming to raise productivity by a further 50% in the next two years to step up another level.

Expert mentor

We’re extremely fortunate that the mentoring programme has paired us up with Shaun McInerney, Engineering Director at BAE Systems Land UK. We began by having a couple of discussions over the phone late last year, before Shaun came in to our factory to get a better idea of how we’re performing. He then invited a team of us to visit one of BAE’s manufacturing sites at Radway Green.

The visit was inspirational. We were given a tour and shown how parts are manufactured. But what was most useful was gaining an insight into how they control their process, business and continual improvement programmes.

I took along our Production Manager, Engineering Manager and three CNC Cell Leaders. You can refer to books and photos, but there’s no substitute for walking around a factory and seeing first-hand what ‘good’ looks like.

I was particularly keen to look at best practice around Hoshin Kanri, otherwise known as Policy Deployment. This forms part of lean manufacturing and is a method for ensuring a business meets its strategic goals by driving productivity and progress at every level. This drills down to individual actions and demonstrates to each employee how their work influences and improves the entire operation.

Shaun and his colleagues were extremely open with us about what they do and even provided copies of useful documentation. In turn, they were interested in how we tackled certain challenges and, as with all the best collaborations, we were soon learning from one another.

Next steps

Shaun will keep in touch with us over the coming months, offering the benefit of his experience and checking whether we’re on track to meet our productivity goals.

The programme not only gives us a chance to validate what we’ve already been doing but also to identify things we may have missed and help make the journey smoother.

Essentially, we aim to boost productivity by making the work we do simpler. That’s not only about machining parts quicker. It could also mean, for instance, having faster set-ups, better structured housekeeping and being more efficient at dealing with the paperwork.

Productivity gains will help us produce things quicker so that we can be cheaper and more competitive. It will allow us to have greater control of our cash flow, to cut lead times through faster delivery and ultimately boost the bottom line by selling extra capacity.

Over the next two years I anticipate doubling the size of the company and key to that will be the ability to share knowledge and best practice. The mentoring programme facilitates an open and honest exchange of experience and expertise, which will help shape the future of our business.