Pailton positive about quality issues
COVENTRY’S Pailton Engineering has adopted global standards of continuous quality improvement.
Taking a leaf out of the books of large automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), Pailton – which manufactures steering sytems – has been changing its overall approach to process improvement by embracing the Japanese method of Kaizen projects to improve efficiency.
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.
Pailton managing director John Nollett 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.”
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.”
Pailton has been shortlisted in the Exporter category in TheBusinessDesk.com’s West Midlands Business Masters awards.
The event will be staged next Tursday lunchtime (16th) at the Hyatt Hotel in Birmingham. Tickets are still available via the link below.
