Pailton Engineering Adopts World-Class Continuous Improvement Culture

The ethos behind Kaizen is for everyone from boardroom to the shop floor to become actively involved in suggesting improvements to processes. Changes are then made and monitored and, if they prove successful, adopted.

Implicit to Kaizen is the belief that people closest to a process often have good ideas for improvements, and that a continual accumulation of small but positive changes can deliver significant benefits to an organisation.

These can include cost savings, efficiency gains and improvements to the finished products.

For the past 18 months this change in culture has been driven across Pailton by Robin Mitchell, who has more than 20 years of experience with Jaguar Land Rover where he rose to become Manufacturing Engineering Manager.

He has brought an extensive knowledge of lean manufacturing methods and a deep understanding of continuous process improvement to the Coventry-based company and guided employees through the changes.

John Nollett, Managing Director of Pailton Engineering, said: “Under Robin’s guidance everyone has worked together over the past 12 months to put Pailton Engineering on a par with global automotive OEMs for continual improvement.

“Quality has always been important to Pailton - our position as a global leader in our field is testament to that – and by embedding this new approach we are ensuring that quality and efficiency will continue to rise.

“We are effectively ‘future-proofing’ the company. By having a culture of continuous improvement in place Pailton can offer better products, at better prices, and in shorter times, to its customers in the future.

“We want to fly the flag for British engineering for many years to come. I greatly admire the skill and expertise of our workforce and firmly believe that some of the best ideas come from the shop floor.

“I am delighted with the way in which Pailton workers have whole-heartedly embraced this new way of working and I am sure it will help to give us a competitive advantage for many years ahead.”

Robin Mitchell said: “Demands for quality within the automotive sector are probably the most stringent of any manufacturing environment and Pailton’s standards now really set it apart from the competition.”

Strategic Kaizen projects have already resulted in more efficient use of machinery and a revised lay-out of the factory floor which has freed up space that can now be used to accommodate future growth of the company. Further benefits are expected to flow in the future as employees come up with more suggestions for improvements.