How our on-time shipments rose from 52 per cent to 91 per cent in three months
Peter Scott is a respected and well established textile manufacturer based in Hawick.
The company has been trading for over 125 years and specialises in knitted garments predominantly for the male marketplace.
The company has a variety of hand knitting machines and has made a major investment in automation in order to remain competitive in the longer term.
The challenge
In order to ensure its shipments were dispatched to required delivery dates, textile manufacturer Peter Scott identified a need to introduce Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to the business.
These would help to improve the output of the production team and ensure that achievable targets were set.
SMAS was enlisted by the company’s management to help facilitate the work that was necessary.
What we did
Meetings with management and shop floor staff led to the creation of a project team to analyse the existing production plan.
A tracking spreadsheet enabled the Production Managers to clearly focus the production team on the most critical projects.
Ideas for long term improvement in production efficiency were discussed by the project team. Responsibilities and timelines were identified which could contribute towards achieving the target milestones.
What was the impact for Peter Scott?
On-time delivery improved from 52% to 91% in just three months. A firm achievable focus has been established, quality meetings are operational, productivity has been increased and the main objective – identifying KPIs – has been realised. The new focus on schedule is driving improvement in inventory management and adherence to production deadlines. SMAS was the facilitator within the project, providing focus and clarity with regards to major actions.
The external expert within the team, in effect, also undoubtedly focussed the team to achieve deadlines prior to the next project meeting.
The company’s support for change was vital to the engagement of the supervisors. The success of the initial project has been the catalyst to the company to aggressively meet its delivery targets.
