Manufacturing Leaders

Unlocking the Secrets of Manufacturing Efficiency

• Mark Bracknall • Season 12 • Episode 10

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In the latest episode of the Manufacturing Leaders podcast, we’re joined by Mark Greenhouse - a highly experienced manufacturing consultant who’s spent years working hands-on in the industry.

Mark’s career spans from high-speed food production to advising factories across a wide range of manufacturing environments. Along the way, he’s built a deep understanding of how factories really work - from improving productivity and efficiency to getting business models and operations properly aligned.

In this episode, Mark shares practical strategies that can seriously lift factory performance - in some cases by as much as 40%! 

We dig into how to spot bottlenecks, streamline workflows, and why the way a business is set up can have a huge impact on manufacturing efficiency.

We also talk about the everyday challenges manufacturing leaders face and how to tackle production constraints head-on. Mark explains why things like order frequency and readiness matter more than you might think, and how understanding them can help factories run far more smoothly.

Drawing on real-world experience, Mark makes the case for focusing on time rather than cost, and rethinking traditional process control to keep up with changing market demands. 

It’s a packed conversation full of practical insights to help leaders rethink their approach and unlock hidden potential on the factory floor. 

An absolute must-listen if you’re a manufacturing leader looking to boost productivity, tackle bottlenecks, and get more out of your existing operations - without adding complexity or cost.

You can connect with Mark on LinkedIn right here.

Please like and subscribe - it genuinely helps grow the show and, in turn, helps push the industry forward.

Theo James is a Manufacturing & Engineering Recruiter based in the North East, helping Manufacturing and Engineering firms grow across the UK.

If you’d like more information about Theo James, feel free to get in touch with the team or Mark anytime.

You can call us on 0191 511 1298.

SPEAKER_01:

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Manufacturing Leaders Podcast with me, Mark Bracknell, my director of Theo James Recruitment. Today we're welcome on Mark Greenhouse. Mark is a consultant within the manufacturing industry. Having worked in senior exec roles for many years, he now spends his time helping improve factories. This was a great episode. I couldn't wait to have Mark on. He's kindly agreed to be one of my seminar speakers at the forthcoming Manufacturing Leader Summit in April. Please get your tickets if you haven't got so. So I couldn't wait to pick Mark's brains on all things manufacturing. He's a big believer in that we shouldn't be looking for those 1% gains. Everyone in manufacturing should be looking for that 20 to 30%, those hidden gains that we should be getting today. So I couldn't wait to pick his brains about exactly how we do that. He went into detail about business models, lead times, specifically what leaders should be doing with their team to make sure we get those 20% efficiency gains. And I of course ask him at the end of the interview what you should be doing today to start that journey. So this is really an episode which is going to add a lot of value straight away. So please sit back and listen and enjoy the episode. As ever, please do the honor of just liking and subscribing. Really helps grow the show. But thank you very much. Hope you enjoy the episode. A massive warm welcome today to Mark Greenhouse. Uh Mark Greenhouse, someone who's worked in the manufacturing industry for for many years and um and now for a while has been a consultant industry. So how are we doing Mark? Very well, thank you. Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much for coming on and well timed because uh Mark is um um is one of our seminar um speakers at the event we're doing on April the 30th. And I've just updated him that his seminar is is getting very well booked. So if you haven't got your tickets, please get them now. So uh really looking forward to that. Um first question I ask everyone, Mark, before we sort of dive into your expertise, is uh what does it mean to you to be a leader?

SPEAKER_00:

Um right, it's a really good question and quite deep for the beginning of January. Um I think I think for me to be a leader it's it's it's getting it's appreciating where people are at um and how they uh process things. Um I've learned a lot of that over the last few years. Um so that you can approach people in the ways that they'll they'll understand and and they'll accept. Um and it's also to be honest, it's getting stuff out of people's way. You know, business gets quite complex, or it seems to get quite complex at times, and most of that is unintended complexity. So the idea of a leader is to get that stuff out of the way and let people get on with things. Um, and that can sometimes that can that can be a whole gamut of things. So it can be identifying that somebody's got some core skills that they could develop, it could be working on a team to take some bits of a process out. Um, it could be coaching somebody. Um, but for me it's it's just getting stuff out of people's way and letting them get on with things. That that's what you're paying them for. So why would it be any more complicated than that?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Often the the simplest piece of advice are the are the best, aren't they? The uh and and I really resonate with that because you know what's hard. I think when you first start becoming a leader, whether you own a business or or whether you lead a team, there's a natural ego there that you must be the one that does everything. And and I I definitely suffered from that. And it's such a it's a hard feeling at first giving giving that away, isn't it? That responsibility good feeling when you realise that getting out of good people's way and the better doing the thing that you are, it's you can embrace it, it's it's super.

SPEAKER_00:

It's I I guess it it comes down to the thing I say to a lot of manufacturing leaders is you you have two choices. You can either come up with all the ideas yourself and deal with all the issues yourself, or you can share them with everybody, and you might have 30 or 40 brains thinking about the problem. I know which is easier. I the judgment is what do you share? There are some things that you can't share, there are some things that you need to just play out within the management team or or work out some ideas first, but ultimately, you know what? If I've got 30 or 40 people looking at things, then I'm gonna they'll there'll be experiences, there'll be things they've done, things they've seen that I haven't, and you have a choice, um, and I know which is easier.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, 100%. Um I'd like to speak your brains in quite a few things. I've probably got more notes today actually than normally we do, but uh many because I wanted to maximize your time and and and value you've got because you are someone who has had the you've you've worked and consulted a number of factories and and walked around a lot of factories and and seen a lot, and and from our pre-conversation, it sounds to me like you really feel like there's you know that there's a common set of problems and a common set of values that obviously that all manufacturing facilities have, and I think that's something I really want to unpick. Um, I mean, for me, when you walk around the factory for for the first time, where where do you usually see the the sort of the the biggest productivity um areas that are hiding, I guess, things to unlock?

SPEAKER_00:

Um the really natural clo the really big area for me to look is and and we talk about it a lot in in the world I inhabit, but it's not always obvious to people. Um it's where's the work in progress? Where is stuff stalled? Now there's two types of stalling. There's there's the stalling because you've made a big batch or something and and there's now a load of stuff waiting there. Um and sometimes that can be finished stock. So finished stock is as much of a clue as work in progress, to be honest. Um, so the stuff you've made, you might have part fabricated it, you might have made some subassemblies up, and now they're stood on a shelf. That's stuff that you've dedicated time and resources to that you haven't actually used. So that's kind of a conscious decision to do something, and then it's sat there, and then people are going, I haven't got time to do this job or this job is late. Well, you had time to make the stuff you haven't used, so that's a massive clue. Um, the other one is when you get stuff waiting, so particularly paint shops is a big one. Um, anything involving time off the clock in effect. So you might have a process that's five or ten minutes, and then you have to wait two, three, four hours, twenty-four hours, anything like that is where there's room for improvement. Um so that they're the two biggies I look for is because when people say to you, we haven't got time or we haven't got capacity, well, you've had capacity to do all of this. And the other thing is that the hidden time in the business will be things that aren't on the clock. And typically, if you if you do something for five, ten minutes, twenty minutes, and then you have to leave it for a day or two to cure or go off, or then your financial system won't have a record of that, it will have a record of the time that's gone into it, the labor cost cost and content, but it won't know about the two days that you've just lost on that. Um, and that then uncovers a lot of of hidden stuff, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Because you because I I guess a lot of you know a lot of leaders are excellent at what they do, and they're probably not short for ideas and inspiration, but you're right, it's probably the the time you like to to deliver those. Yes. So, how do you start to get time back, would you say, for most leaders to be able to do what they need to do to improve that efficiency?

SPEAKER_00:

Um I I use a a theory which most which people have heard of, and a lot of people have read a book called The Goal by a guy called Eliyahu Goldrat. Um, and I read it in '91.

SPEAKER_01:

First business book I ever read that, actually.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, right. So yeah, so you'll know the story of the scouts and and the and the herbies and and all of that, and and the kind of delays in a business. And actually, that's what I'm looking for. Um sorry I have a little I have a few props that I use when I'm talking to people, and and this is one of them that I'm just opening up. Um I'm looking for that. So I've got a sand timer. In any business, there is always one of these points that is stopping things moving through. And if I try and improve, and what most people try and do is business leaders have got a list of improvements, and I've got things up here and things down here, they won't allow any more flow through this business. If I can find that, I can get improvement through a business. So I'm looking for that one bottleneck, that one Herbie, and what's the flow through the business? So if you remember the story of the scouts walking and how fast they could go, um, and I can give you, you know, I was talking, I was I was just compiling some results over Christmas and checking them through. And I've had a client go from£120,000 a week to£190,000 a week inside three weeks. We're not talking ages, yeah, didn't have to buy any new equipment. We just absolutely focused on where we found the bottleneck to be and managed the heck out of that bottleneck. Um, and the benefit of that, when you when you when you find this bit, the real clever trick to it is that that's the bit you need to manage. Everything else can cope with what's going on in the business. That's the bit that can never cope with it because it's already restricted. So when you've got a lack of clarity, a lack of order, a lack of control, that bit there, if you control that, you can normally get an awful lot more through. So all of a sudden, all this complexity and all the noise that's coming from all these different departments doesn't matter. Focus on that bit, make that bit work really hard. So you're you actually shrink down where you've got to put your effort, so it makes it easier to do the job. Yeah. So you don't need, I don't need reams and reams of data. I've run factories without any data at all. Because I've focused on that one bit, and it sounds, you know, I I've run some fairly big factories in that way, and people kind of find it mind-boggling that I can ignore the rest because it's like that's the only bit that I need to know is running properly. If that's running properly, everything else must be because materials arrive in at that point at the right time and it's exiting there at the right time, yeah. And I can see if there's if there's a buildup around that area because it or it's not getting fed fast enough, then there's a problem somewhere else. I don't need the data to tell me that. I instill that in the team so I get the teams to monitor that. So check you, keep an eye on what's coming through, keep an eye on what you're sending out. And if there's any change in that, if you see it start to fall or you see it start to build out on the output side, flag it, shout me, scream at me, jump up and down because there's a problem coming. And by the time I get the data, it's going to be too late.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. But are those bottlenecks? Couldn't they be um team different things? Or have you because I imagine these are things perhaps aren't that costly, the things which people have just missed along the way?

SPEAKER_00:

No, they can be quite quite easy to fix. Yeah. They can be quite easy to fix. Sometimes, sometimes they require some some cost investment.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, so one company I was at, we we looked at we looked at two parts of the business. They had a lot of CNC machining where they did a lot of spare parts. About 85% of their business is normally spare parts, but they also make some new machines. Um, and the new machines have got bigger and bigger and bigger over the years, to the point of actually they couldn't physically build them within the factory safely. So they had a method, but it wasn't brilliant. And when we got down to it, it was right. Um, the problem is you we need to put a new crane system in here, which it was a£100,000 investment. So we worked at it, you know, it was a it was an investment, but the reality was we could increase the output by about four and a half million pounds a year.

SPEAKER_02:

Wow.

SPEAKER_00:

So it's like£100,000 now, yeah, it's gonna last you 10 to 20 years, it's a crane, it's not gonna fail. They don't do an awful lot of work through the you know, through the investment. Um, but if we can get it in, it's worth four and a half million pounds on your revenue. And actually, you don't need any more staff because the way they're having to build at the moment is so constrained by your building. Um, so it was it was probably one of the easiest ROIs I've ever put together for a business to say, look, this crane will last you know minimum ten years, and there's four and a half million pounds worth a year of goods that you can ship out. Um it's kind of a a no-brainer, and they've been they'd actually sat on that decision for about eight years. They'd never they'd kind of had this feeling that maybe it might be that. Um so sometimes it can it can require some investment, sometimes it's as simple as um the company where I took from 120 to 190,000, it was making sure it never stopped, it did stuff in the right order, so it knew what the next stage needed, and it did it all in the right order, and it was a few hand tools to be able to machine metals in a slightly different way, slightly faster. Um, and also taking one or two bits out that other guys further up so guys ahead of the process could actually do bits themselves. That was it. That that that 120 to 190,000 is probably the quickest I've done.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, which which it was interesting because people always look for you know this one percent incremental gains, you know. I've I've I've you know I've done my business, but actually, you know, that is mini school in comparison to what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I I kind of have a real problem with the idea of the one percent gains because I can get that when it comes out of when you're physically doing something with your body, so I I get the sport analogy, and and if I can make my my hands move faster, I might be able, you know, I might gain a little bit in wind resistance if I'm running, or if I can I can do something uh with my legs, if I can be if I can increase my lung capacity by one percent. I might I get all of that, but if I do one percent all the way around here and all the way around there, I've got nothing. Yeah, I've got nothing to stop moving the one bottleneck, yeah. Yeah, so you know, there'll be there will be sports men and women out there who've learned I need to do this one thing really well every day. Five or ten percent out of that one, um, but then there's this one percent theory. I I think I I also stood um it was in a presentation just before Christmas where I got told if every business in the UK was one percent more productive, how how what effect that would have on the UK economy? And I sort of stood there and I thought, what what why is anyone bothering to get a bed to do one percent more? Yeah, what what is yeah it'll get lost, it's just noise. But if I said to you there's 20, there's 30, there's 40 percent. Um, I mean, I actually reviewed a business three days ago for it was it was for an old client, and we were going back through some figures. Um, and these are from 2017, but their output went up 35 percent in a year.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow, amazing. And and what I love about this is you're gonna get people listening going, well, I guess hopefully challenging their thoughts of how much they can get out of their factory because there's probably there's probably a block. I imagine you get a block there every time you go into a factory of their belief system. Yes, yeah, yeah, which is which is which is a good because it's it's all about investment, investment, isn't it? Where they might not need to do that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, most most don't need to do investment. The ones who do the investment is relatively small compared with the gain they can make, is is my experience. It's not opinion, it's experience. And it's interesting you say the word belief, but it's the way a factory works is grounded in maths. Um because it's grounded in time, you know. I don't I don't look for cost reductions, I look for time. The only thing I ever look for is time. I'm not interested in cost reduction programs because everything comes back to time. Can I get stuff through this factory uh quickly? And how do I do that? What's what's the minimum time I could do it in? Um and that that if you like belief is also a is also a training, it's also an experience thing. So I studied manufacturing back in the late 80s, early 90s. I I spent time studying how factories work, how work actually flows through them. Um, so it it is a challenge because people will believe that things work in, you know, oh, it's better to set up set up a large batch of things. So if I've got a machine I can set up and I can do I can do 10 items on it because I've got that much setup time, um, but I only need one of them. I've wasted the time on that machine making nine of them that I didn't need that I haven't sold. Um, and that's a really tricky one because the financial consideration will be well, it's cheaper to run it like that. Yeah, it might look cheaper, but actually I've now got nine items still on my shell on my shelf that I don't need. That's not cheap. Yeah, that's not economic. That that's actually my time. The only thing you can't, you know, you can the only thing you can actually save is time, and that's time that's that's not being spent. Once you've spent the time, it's gone.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So you've got to the the ultimate focus for me is always on time.

SPEAKER_01:

How do you feel about um business models within within manufacturing? Because I guess you know the a process could be identical within a a different factory, but their business models might must be different uh do you do you find that when you investigate?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that that's one of the big big issues is that because look, most most manufacturing people start or most manufacturing firms start off with with a couple of people in a shed somewhere, they don't start off with what they are now, yeah. So I get where that where they come from. Um and every time they grow, somebody's put an opportunity their way and said, Can you do this? Can you make that? Can you and they go, Yeah, I can do that. And the dealing with it that that the kind of right, how are we going to do it comes along later? But normally what they're getting asked to do is something that is similar to what they've done before. So, in an engineering term, we talk about fit, form, and function. So, whatever they've been asked to do is kind of very similar in terms of fit, form, and function. So, if you think about making um double glaze windows for a um in a factory, every double glazed window is different because you and I have got different houses and and we have different size windows in our own house. So, but what they have to comply with, the leg legislation on on heat loss and and how many panes of glass we put in and how big they are and everything. Is always the same. And we go to a guy who can do double glazing and new PVC because that's what he sells. Um so each business then develops, it goes along and it adds more to it. Nobody actually designs the business system. And the problem with that is that dependent on what you're selling and how often you're selling it. So if you're making stuff regularly in repeated patterns, but maybe every few months, that's different towards a complete make-to-order process compared with a make to stock. Um and that knowledge of those systems really helps in kind of optimizing them. And sometimes in the business, you you can quite easily get two or three models in play at the same time. So you're making I work with a lot of people who have peaks and troughs of demand. I think most markets have a peak and trough of demand. Um I think the most the most interesting one is that um dealing with a company who were making creams um and depalatory creams, so hair removal creams, um, but and they don't sell any in Eastern Europe in three or four months of the year. Because everyone just gets fully clothed up, so they don't need to take any of the hair off. So it's kind of like huge demand that's during summertime, wintertime, no demand at all. Um, but every I think every market's probably got some kind of demand curve, peaks, and troughs. Yeah, so you're making to stock, and then you get so you've got these production lines or production areas making stuff, then you'll put it into your warehouse, and then you'll get well, I've got an order here, and I've got one item of that, and a box of this, and two boxes of that, and three bottles of that. So you're actually assembling an order, it's the same factory, but you're doing two completely different processes in that one little factory that you've put stuff into bottles. Other companies will have CNC machines and they'll be punching stuff out, and the guys will be making some stuff to stock, and then there'll be other guys taking it off. Well, I've got an order here for that machine or that part, so I'm gonna make that one part and I'm gonna push it through. So you've you've quite often got two or three different competing um business models going on in a business that everyone's oblivious to, and the reality is most companies have got one financial system which is trying to measure the cost of everything. Yeah, so that one system can't cope with all these different systems, so it it suboptimizes at least two of them, if not all. The reality is if you've got three, it'll probably suboptimize all three. Um, so the business models kind of are dependent on what type of orders you get on, whether they're one-offs, intermittents, um periodical but repeated, so you know that well, every quarter I'm going to get an order for this product, and it'll be around about this amount, versus the sort of continuous flow stuff that's going through. Um, and then you have to consider how are we making it? Is it I put one piece of metal onto one machine, I machine it, and it goes out? Is it I put one piece of metal onto a machine and then pass it through various machines um to end up with the finished part, which is kind of a sequential production, but it but it isn't a production line, you know. I I love inside the factory, but every factory is you might have seen my post on it, every factory is white walls, hair nets, nice clean overalls with everybody's name on, and conveyors moving everything. That that might be how they make the stuff that we eat and drink from the supermarkets, but it isn't the way most manufacturers work. Definitely. Um, so you've got kind of a pseudo-production line process, um, and then you've got what I call sort of modular assembly where you're pulling in lots of subassemblies, lots of parts made out, and again, they can be one-offs or they can be stuff that you've made before, and then ultimately there's a kind of there's the kind of I call it a convergent model where you've got some stuff you're making in-house, some stuff you're buying in, you've got stocks of different materials all over the place, you've got some assembly going on, you've probably got some testing and commissioning going on, and you've got a really complex system to try and control. Um, so all of that then breaks down into a business model. Um, and I will bring this on the day, but um I've got it there and it you know doesn't show up, does it?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yep, okay. Yeah, nice.

SPEAKER_00:

But yeah, there's a whole stack of boxes there, and I find out where you are. Okay. Um, and I can do that in advance of coming to your factory. But once I know where you are on that, that tells me about what your procurement policies should probably be, what your stock prop possibilities are, what skills challenges you're gonna have, and how you can can meet those. Um, but that kind of knowledge just doesn't exist in in UK manufacturing. Um, we've and I think that it's probably not a man, it's not a manufacturing problem. A lot of people will want people who've worked in the same sectors before. So a finance company will want somebody who's worked in finance, an insurance company must have had five years, ten years experience of insurance. Um the reality is that's what happens. You know, you'll you'll go to a you know fabrication company and they'll want people with 10 years worth of welding experience of doing X, Y, Z. Um and that's that's that's what we get. So the challenge for a lot of us is that you know the guys who are running factories tend to be technical. They tend to be guys who've been able to do some of the activities on the shop floor, but they've never been taught how a shop floor should be run. Yeah. Um and that's that for me is a biggie. And and simple design changes can make it run a lot better for them, um, which then at least gives them a chance to learn about the additional skills that they need and decide whether they want them as well.

SPEAKER_01:

Apologies for interrupting this episode with a very quick announcement about my business. Theo James are a specialist talent provider, specifically to the manufacturing and engineering sector. I'm incredibly proud of what we've achieved since our inception in 2015. We specialise in roles from semi-skilled trades right the way up to our TJ Exec search arm of the business, both on the contract and permit side. We offer both bespoke one-off campaigns for heart of roles or a full partnership service where we become an extension of your business. For any information, please get in touch with me or the team. I hope you enjoy the rest of the episode. Thank you. If if someone driving in there, let's say they're an engineering director, director of a business, and they're probably thinking, I can't tell you exactly what our business model is. What two questions do you think they should ask themselves today to really start to unlock what their business model perhaps should be?

SPEAKER_00:

Um they've got to be really, really hard on themselves. What does our order frequency look like? So is it always one-off? Because for a lot of people it isn't. You dig into it and it's like it kind of feels like it's one off, and everyone's you know, that's where everyone says, Oh, every order's different. And the reality is it isn't. So, but you might get repeating periods, so you might get something like I say, once a quarter, same order, once uh once a year once every six months, the same order. Um, or you may genuinely not get it um again. So, how how frequent are the orders that are coming in? Um, is the sort of first one. And then do we are we making to that order or are we making to stock here? Are we putting it on a shelf and does it sit there? Because if it makes to stock, if it's made to order or assembled to order or engineered to order, which is slightly different models, but but in but only slightly different, they lead you in one way. If you're making to stock, that's a different way. And the model can the the thing is the model can change through a business. So where is it sitting on a shelf waiting for something? Because that's a very definite make to stock process, and there's probably delays in that in certain things. Normally in a make-to-stock business, you're making too much to go into stock, is the issue.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

In the engineer make to order, assemble to order, it's normally in order readiness is the main issue. Okay, yeah. So you've put something to the shop floor. Um, I was with an organization about a year ago, um and they they were convinced that they didn't have enough um enough staff and they didn't have enough space. Uh and I could I picked up within an hour that um I probably thought they had more than enough. They could probably do around about 40 to 50 percent more out of the factory. It was their order readiness that was the real issue. So they would issue an order out to the shop floor with materials that hadn't been ordered, um, sub-assemblies that weren't coming in on time, and it's like that that's your problem, not the guys on the shop floor. Yeah, um, so they that they would be my kind of big two that I would look at.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. Um obviously, you had uh a lot of experience in in high high speed you know food production manufacturing, and we mentioned that um on the factory. The TV programs is often your cabries and and that the like. Uh what what do you think? What lessons do you did you learn and what can people learn do you think from from those type of factories and the output and the and the the process of it that you've taken?

SPEAKER_00:

Um I think I I I'll I'll give you some context to it. So so I worked for a guy in I started with him in '91. Um and we we we put soft drinks in bowls. That was what we did. Um and it didn't hit me at the time, but we used to bring guys across from I think it was PepsiCo used to hire Concorde and bring managers across to see how we designed this factory and what we were doing with it. Um and the guy in there was constantly looking at ways of taking out time. The owner, that was his driver. Um, so I kind of picked up that from him, really, was that that main one. Um, within within the sort of wider community of of those guys, it's all about process control. Um, and you you will see some really good process control, and process control can be it sounds quite boring, and people get involved with Six Sigma and and all kinds of things like that. But you do see it on inside the factory. So, um, and again, I wrote about it. So, weather is a big one. We're in January, there'll be a lot of sheds out there that are unheated. Guys come in of the morning, metal's cold, they're trying to weld it together, or they'll pull something out of a warehouse and they'll they'll push you know, they'll they'll pull an adhesive in out of the the shed somewhere, start to use it, it doesn't work because our process control isn't there, we haven't kept it at the right temperature to be able to use it immediately. I come across those things all the time. So for me, process control would be a biggie. Um, I'll give you I'll give you an example. So in 1995, when I was part of the team running the Quavers factory down in Lincoln, um quavers are made from a powder. Okay, so um it's a starch powder. How long do you think it took us from the moment we opened the starch powder bag and started to mix it to make a quaver? How long do you think it took from there to get in a quaver out of that bag of mix that we've just opened? Go on, tell us. Go on, have a guess. Have a guess. Two days. Two days, no, thirteen and a half days. Really? Yes. Yeah. Wow. Because our process controls how we got water out of the quaver. So quavers are a um a bit like a prawn cracker, you flash fry them there. Yeah, and I think they're eight seconds at 230 degrees. There you go, that's 30 years ago, and I can still remember it, it's still embedded in here. Yeah, yeah. Um, but you have to have a certain amount of moisture in them, and it can't be too much because if the if you've if you've got a very thin layer of really dry stuff around it, it won't flash fry. Yeah, and if it's too wet, it won't flash fry properly, so you get a clumping. Um, and we had to do that with a piece of equipment that was quite manual. We had to put things in bins and turn them and keep turning them over the 13 days to make sure that the moisture came out.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And our nightmare was things like summertime when it's nicely going away at a certain level, and you're kind of thinking I'll get away with maybe 12 days here because it's drying a bit quicker. And then you open a little window at the top of the factory and you look across the Lincolnshire walls, and you can see a thunderstorm coming in, and it's gonna dump a load of water and a lot of moisture into the humanity seal just, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so the humidity changes see they're going, oh, this is gonna play havoc with what we're doing.

SPEAKER_01:

So much time forever, isn't it? Too much time forever.

SPEAKER_00:

So you shut down all the extraction so that you don't pull in any of the moist air. Yeah, um, you know, as for anyone who's watching who's under the age of 30, that's when we didn't have internet weather forecasts or every newspaper under the sun telling us we're having a 600-meter, uh 600-mile wall of snow and things. Yeah, um, so process control for me is is the big lesson that I learned from those guys. Temperature, um, time, humidity, acidity, all these things can all affect what we're trying to do. Um, and they if there's one thing they absolutely focused on. So I think now we we bought the powder in uh at Lincoln um pre-made. I think now they make their own powder um down in Leicester because it is a byproduct of of um crisp production, they make their own powder and within 24 hours they're now getting a quaver out. Oh so, and that is all to do with process control. We did we didn't we didn't have the equipment to be able to do it back then. Um we had a I think it was a biscuit dryer from the 1960s. That was our equipment.

SPEAKER_01:

You talk about your 20-30 percent, you know what I mean? If someone had said uh you're gonna get down to two days, you you probably thought most would have thought it would have been possible over however many years.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. I think well, I I I think it was one of those lessons where it uh when they were trying to do it, because I was there when they were starting to do the research on it, it was like it's possible, but but you've got to really understand the product, you've got to you've almost got to work with with us as managers to know how this is going to work. And I think one of the things I learned just watching that project begin to kick off was that managers weren't listened to in the first instance, and it and it and they were struggling to work it out, and it's like talk to the managers because they'll show you what what we have to do. Um so yeah, pro I would say process control, you know, everything everything in those industries has been improved by that. So you you know, I I put toothpaste in a in a tube, and keeping the temperatures consistent in the factory are key to keeping you know at home. You you know when you're open a tube, toothpaste, it'll start to go hard and things. So you want to keep the temperature flowing at a a reasonable amount because you the toothpaste will keep flowing. If you let it cool down, it it won't flow as well. So you just I think process control, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

There's so I mean, I guess the the challenge you will always have in any factories is so much, you know. Where where do you start? What's the first thing you look at? Because there's so many low-hanging fruit, but there's also bigger things that people probably tend to look at, AI, all this type of stuff. Yeah. To to leave people with this concept, what would be the first couple of things that you think they should start to look at during the next two weeks? Obviously, we've spoken about the business model and the productivity side. You know, if they're thinking and we're well behind this, but they're they're a bit motivated by this, some stuff to do. Yeah, what are the first couple of things you think they should be be looking at? And that that could be something strategic, it could be something with on the management team. What what would you suggest they start to get this ball rolling, would you say?

SPEAKER_00:

Um the the really simple thing I would do is walk the floor, but walk it with a purpose. So walk an order through the floor. So we took we there's a lot of people talk about walking the gember and and things like that, which is you know, it's lovely, but it ends up being a um kind of twee thing that you see managers doing. I've been out on the floor. Well, what have you looked at? So for me, I always walk an order through. So I look like I want to walk this order through and I want to see it go through, and I want to see what happens to it. Um, so you might walk through. I remember walking at a manager in it was in a company in Germany, and we we started. I pulled a piece of raw material off the off the shelf and I said, right, we're gonna start with this and we're gonna walk it through. And every step I take will be a day. And I said, and we got to the we got to the end of his paint booth, and I said, So far I've taken 42 steps. And he looked and he went, but we've only got about 40 metres. I went, yeah, exactly. We've done 42, 40 meters in 42 days. So that's how long it takes you to walk through this factory. So I normally what I normally do with people is do a walkthrough and say, right, this is how long it takes to get from here to here. This is how long it takes to get from here to here, and this is where it and it's one of the most powerful things people can do, but you normally have to walk an order through specifically to see it. I've I've learned how to not, if you like, I can take parts of an order and go, right, well, I know it takes this long, and I know it takes that long, so we can do it relatively quickly. But if I was doing it, I'd follow one order through and just see what happens to it. Um, and when you convert distance it covers to how many days it's been in a factory, that's when the kind of a penny drops for people.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Um, because most factories are not that big, you know. That might there's a lot of noise in in what I do around oh layout improvement and things like that. But a lot of that's driven from the the very first companies who who use kind of a lot of the techniques that I'll use. So I will I will use things like lean techniques and and things like that, but a lot of that work was done on the automotive side. And they're big sites, you know. Some sites I've worked on in the past, um, you you have needed a bike to get around on, or you'd be sat in your office and you go, right, uh, I've got a meeting, um, it's quarter to the hour, I better leave now to get to the office I'm going to. Um, but for most people that isn't true. You know, you can walk their site in five or ten minutes, yeah. So, you know, one end of the factory. But if you equate that five or ten minute walk to it takes us 50 days to get it through, that's the point at which you kind of go, right? I need how do I get that down to five or ten days?

SPEAKER_01:

There's your time. Yeah. Excellent. What's the best obviously the best thing they can do is contact you, obviously. So how would they uh how would they do that, Mar? What's the best way to get is it LinkedIn?

SPEAKER_00:

Best way is LinkedIn, obviously. Um, I spend I I do spend a reasonable amount of time on there. Um probably because it's a great I I learn a lot of stuff off different people, you know. I've got a lot of contacts in in in the States, in Europe, where I learn stuff off and challenge people over thinking. And um, but yeah, LinkedIn would be the the best place to get hold of me. Um and I do, you know, I do specifically do reviews of organizations. So I do I will do a review and give you an action plan of what I would do. So you can go and do it with anybody. I don't I'm not precious that it has to be done with me, but I will give you an action plan and say these are the things that I would do, this is the order I'd do them in. Um, and then we can work at some other things. So I I do coaching and mentoring for managers because one of the things that I've picked up is that I've spent a lot of time in in some big organizations and had some really good training on this, and I've also I've also studied manufacturing, so there's kind of seven hats that manufacturing managers have to wear, and most of the time they're struggling to wear one of them. So I do that as well, but yeah, the the the best place is LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_01:

Perfect, and uh as uh obviously they can see a good 20-25 minutes of you at our forthcoming uh manufacturers at leading summit in April Fave as well. So but look, um, thanks as much. It's been great. I I often when I summarize the end, I often think about the takeaways that that I've taken from it, and obviously this is different in the sense it's very specific to manufacturing, but actually it isn't because actually when I was listening to you, you know, it really challenged my thoughts on you know, we're always looking at those little improvements where actually there's some big stuff that we could change.

SPEAKER_00:

I'll share something with you. I for a period spent some time out in service industry, so I went to banks, I went to insurance companies, I went to legal firms. Um I've had legal firms up their output in things like conveyancing, their output's gone up 40% by learning this stuff. Um, I've had guys doing road traffic accident work, their output's jumped 20-30 percent because they've learned where they are, what they need to do, and what what they can focus on. Um, yeah, it isn't anywhere where you're moving any if you like information, because that's all we're moving, that's the other thing. Actually, what we're moving is information around the business. Yeah, so I'm moving that part from there to there, and the information that goes with it is what that next guy needs to do with it. That's the same in any organization. We're moving stuff from one person to the next, and there needs to be information with it, so yeah, it's um it is applicable to a lot of businesses, but um, you know, and that's why I'm kind of sat here going the the productivity of the UK could be so much higher.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and it it needs to be, it needs to be because we can't ever compete on on cost, you know. So it has to it has to be on the efficiency piece. So I I I completely agree. And and uh, you know, thank you because this is definitely been one that that's that's challenged me in a good way, and I'm already thinking, right, I'm gonna simplify, you know, our model and and but just hone in on that one thing, what's that north saw? That's that one thing that's gonna move the needle and make a difference. And uh, you know, I'm sure you'll be you'll be challenging people, perhaps driving in or listening to this while doing something. So uh so thank you, Mark. Uh uh, this has been great. So uh thank you very much. Um looking forward to seeing April.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you, and thanks for the invitation and the chance to uh to share it with people.

SPEAKER_01:

Thanks, mate. Thank you so much for listening or watching this episode of the Manufacturing Leaders podcast. Please just like or subscribe, it really helps grow the show and obviously improve the industry. If you want any more information about Theo James, as I mentioned midway through the episode, please get in touch with me or the team. I would love to talk about how it can help you directly or your business. We are more than just a recruiter, and I know people say that, but it's something I'm incredibly passionate about. We are in business for much more than just a bums on seats approach. We want to help people grow, we want to help improve their lives, and ultimately I want to work with businesses and people who share the same values as we do, and that's something I'm incredibly passionate about. So please, if that is you and you are passionate about that dream role or passionate about your people, please get in touch with me or the team. I would absolutely love to talk a bit more detail. Thank you very much. Speak soon.