Is your manufacturing business ready for Brexit?
Whether you voted to leave or remain, like it or not, the UK is destined to leave the European Union within the next two to three years. Brexit may…
Six root causes of poor labour productivity
Poor labour productivity rates are a growing concern for policymakers and manufacturers alike. Output per hour in manufacturing fell by 2% during the final quarter of 2015 but rose…
Labour KPIs – what does good look like?
UK Labour Productivity According to the Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) most recent Labour Productivity statistical bulletin [1], the weakness of manufacturing productivity has been a ‘defining feature’ of…
Five reasons why your manufacturing KPIs fail
Jeremy Harford, Managing Director of MESTEC, explains the five reasons why your manufacturing KPIs fail to improve factory performance. By all accounts, times are tough for UK manufacturers. The…
Small changes for big wins – marginal gains in manufacturing
If manufacturers want advice on making small change for big wins, MESTEC’s Jeremy Harford believes they could do a lot worse than looking to Great Britain’s Olympic cycling team,…
Inaccurate labour costings could kill your profits
Most manufacturing businesses have a strong handle on overall company profitability, but some – especially those making multiple products with high labour content – struggle to set product pricing…
Five ways to kick start manufacturing productivity
Productivity growth in the UK today is at its worst since World War II[1]. In fact, the Financial Times states that Britain has ‘lost the ability’ to improve productivity[2] since…
Three key workforce performance strategies for achieving your operational KPIs
Your people are your most important assets; change the way you manage your manufacturing workforce’s performance and you’ll start to notice your operational key performance indicators (KPIs) falling into…
Is ERP good enough for your factory floor?
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software is a suite of applications that a business can use to collect, store, manage and interpret data from many business activities, including: product planning;…
6 essential KPIs for world-class factory performance
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it,” so said Management Consultant Peter Drucker, and this certainly holds true for the manufacturing environment. Depending on the systems and…
8 steps to improve plant performance
According to the Office of National Statistics (ONS), UK workers produced less during 2014 than they did in 2007. The actual output per worker fell by 0.2 per cent….
Tackling the manufacturing skills crisis
The UK’s skills crisis shows no signs of abating. A severe deficit in skills has affected 40% of companies over the last 5-10 years and many companies are still…