FMF Monthly Meetings Reviews

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Meeting Review - June 2005

Knowledge Exchanges

At the June meeting Tony Jay and Charles Leventon from Contact came to talk to us about the important area of liberating academic knowledge and making it available in the work environment.

There are 11 universities around the Midlands who are participating in these Knowledge Transfer activities facilitating access to the vast and diverse resources that they have.

They can offer:

Education and training
Access to facilities
Problem solving and consultancy
Research and development
Business development
Creative thinking and collaborative working
Student projects and placements
Network and business clubs
Access to funding

The real benefit to business is to improve bottom line performance and competitive position with tailored solutions to meet all needs. They have the ability to work at all levels – strategic, operational and tactical. Resources can also be easily outsourced.

There is also the opportunity to access graduate and undergraduate skills by having students work within our businesses for long periods at relatively low cost on projects that should deliver major benefits.

If you would like to explore these opportunities further please contact Tony Jay (Hereford & Worcestershire) 07855 745814 or Charles Leventon (Shropshire) 07870 562789 or go to www.contactke.co.uk

Managing Retailers Expectations

This important area attracted considerable interest at the last meeting and was led by Dr Jim Monaghan (ex M&S and now a lecturer at Harper Adams) and Stan Robertson (MD of Howe Shedden, which is a major supplier of both brand and retailer brand drinks)

Jim was able to put the position of the retailer and highlighted a number of important challenges in the market place. The continuous battle between the retailers to achieve the lowest prices in the high street for branded goods dominates everybody's thinking. However product quality and innovation are still very important.

The retailers have all seriously eroded the margins of the manufacturers but still expect that they will be supported and that their brands will be protected. There is also an expectation that the manufacturers will continue to drive both NPD and value.

Stan Robertson explained in detail the various functions of the key contacts at each of the retailers. Understanding who does what is vitally important when it comes to achieving the best possible results for both the manufacturer and the retailer. At the end of the day people make it work!

The operation of the e-auction was discussed in detailed and Stan was able to demonstrate through a model example how a deal is struck over a portfolio of lines.

Attention to detail is key particularly a detailed understanding of how the logistics and distribution system works. There is also a need to spend the time to analyse the monitoring and forecasting information that is available.

Stan Robertson is available to undertake training of National Account Managers and can be contacted by phone on 07765 407547 or email at stan.robertson@howeshedden.co.uk

Carl Kovacs - 07/12/04

Meeting Review - May 2005

Energy & Waste Reduction

Everything You Need to Know about Waste Reduction and Energy Conservation (but never had time to ask)...

...a review of the workshop presented by leading consultant Andy Pickersgill at the May 2005 meeting of the FMF

It has been a feature of the season of FMF meetings in 2005 that things are practical and focussed on making a difference for you and your business. So, Andy Pickersgill's workshop at our May meeting was no exception.

After the briefest of reviews of legislation and definitions; theory and motivations (commercial, political and altruistic), Andy soon got delegates focussing on the practical matters of:

why do anything? - the commercial imperative that erases all thought of simply putting this topic into the "too difficult, not core to our business slot"
what can you do? - what is the scope? where does the value lie?
how do you start? - where do you look in your business? what help is available?

A lively exchange between delegates pin-pointed the 50% hike in unit energy prices for manufacturers over the last 2 years. (If only manufacturers' prices had moved by the same amount!) The agreed practical outcome of this discussion was a proposal to create a monthly "energy benchmark" based on confidentially shared and anonymous information between FMF members. More on this development through the next issue of the FMF Newsletter.

The workshop moved on to consider waste under three main classifications:

Visible/obvious
Hidden/less obvious
Energy

and this simple exercise enabled delegates to realise the full extent and depth of the opportunities.

So, why not just get on and do something about it? Andy's next exercise addressed this critical question. With so much at stake, surely this is high on the priority list for all manufacturers. Delegates soon pinpointed the barriers to action: time, resources, lack of knowledge, information, understanding, conflicting demands, where to start, "we've always done it that way", "its not obvious", style of the organisation, "someone else's problem" to name but a few.

How can you get things moving? - Andy's approach and how do the best businesses do it?

It starts by developing an integrated energy strategy which lines up with the direction of your business. Are you expecting growth? Will your energy consumption attract economies of scale or do you expect your products to become more energy intensive? The strategy can then be devolved into a plan or series of plans with SMART objectives, measurements and KPI's. You won't know all the answers so you'll need to investigate and audit wastage and usage. It all sounds terribly complicated and that's one of the reasons that lots of businesses don't even try!

But with a bit of help this is a big prize to go for offering opportunities to:

cut cost
increase margin
improve the profile of your business in the eyes of customers, consumers and shareholders

Andy recommends not getting over complicated:

Gut feel is ok (better to get started than do nothing). Go for the obvious and big opportunities.
Use a co-ordinated approach - set up a multi-functional group to ensure that savings in one area aren't out-weighed by on-costs elsewhere.
Look around for industry best practice and develop benchmarking relationships with other businesses.
Consider buying-in some expertise to coach and guide you and your team.
Look for continuous improvement rather than revolutionary changes overnight - but make sure that your gains are ratcheted so that they don't slip back when your attention is diverted elsewhere.
Consider employee education, empowerment and involvement. Waste and energy consumption are inevitably in the hands of the workforce and often driven by a lack of understanding. Improvements can have a major impact on productivity, competitiveness and therefore security of employment. It's a good win-win opportunity.
There are lots of models and processes that can be applied but top of the list comes lots of hard work and time to change things. So you need a plan that delivers some rapid returns to fund further investment allowing you to move on to explore the more sophisticated benefits of Lean Manufacture, 6 sigma etc.
and, if you know where and how to look, there is plenty of help and money around from the likes of: Carbon Trust, Envirowise, Business Resource Efficiency and Waste (BREW) - where typical project benefits amount to 7% of profits or 1% of turnover. How useful would that be in your business?

If you're interested in finding out more of what Andy Pickersgill could do for you and your business, he can be contacted on: Mobile: 07831 482384, Office: 01453 886135 or Email:andy@pickersgill1.freeserve.co.uk

Carl Kovacs - 06/12/04

Meeting Review - April 2005

Packaging - An Eye to the Future

Our FMF April meeting focussed on the important issue of packaging and how it will continue to play a major part in the lives of all of us in the Food Industry for the foreseeable future.

Ralph Early introduced the session saying that the subject of food packaging is complex, dynamic, scientific, technological and controversial. It affects the way that we transport, store, present for sale and use our food products.

It can play an important part in reducing food waste as we are all trained to use food direct from its packaging because it is considered safer.

The opportunities to promote brand image and provide information are immense.

Rowan Tinn from Clifford Packaging then talked about Shelf Ready Packaging. This is already becoming one of the most important and critical issues in the Industry. The major retailers have already signalled a requirement to change over 10000 lines into this format in the near future.

The need for this is driven by the fact that stores are becoming increasingly busy and with the need for 24-hour replenishment it is becoming difficult to get staff to carry this out.

Many fixtures will be converted to merchandisable units where goods can be wheeled straight into position.

The design of packaging to go straight onto the shelf will be very important. It will need to be easily recognisable by the consumer and easy to open with no glue being used. This will mean that many food factories will have to invest in new carton erectors and packaging suppliers will be focussing on design to use less board to keep costs down.

Rowan then set the meeting a design exercise with a typical project brief. This turned out to be a fascinating activity with a number of the syndicates coming up with some interesting ideas that brought this important subject into sharp focus.

Website: www.cliffordpackaging.com
Carl Kovacs - 05/12/04

Meeting Review - March 2005

Coaching for Improvement

Socrates said that an unexamined life was not worth living. By this he meant that if we cannot reflect on the life we have lived and learn from our successes and failures, then we will be destined to make the same mistakes in the future and fail to fulfil our potential.

This Socratic principle ran as a thread through Ron Oliver's excellent workshop on 'Coaching for Performance' on 25th March 2005. With a style of delivery that was deft and at the same time light of touch, and with much humour, Ron positioned the art of coaching as an adjunct to education and training: it is not education and training. Coaching is about helping people to find in themselves the intellectual and emotional resources needed to evaluate properly the problems they face in work and life, and then to formulate solutions. Of course, the resolution of problems will draw from knowledge and skills gained through education and training: but, perhaps the key concept imparted by Ron was that through coaching, the innate abilities of an individual can be unlocked and then, through reflection and linkage with knowledge and skills, their full potential can be realised.

Central to the ideas that Ron presented in the workshop was the importance of the coach as a facilitator, listener, confidant, and the source of encouragement. In many ways Ron's description of the coach was the description of the enlightened, post-industrial manager. The good coach is someone who leads at times, but who is also comfortable with helping people find their own way. Importantly the good coach understands that people are all too human and that insecurity and the tendency to make mistakes is part of the human condition. The good coach thus has the intellect and maturity to build this understanding into the relationships they develop with people. It is through the medium of coaching, that the good coach will then instil in people the confidence and ability to draw on their own resources to shape their life and work, achieve clear objectives and deliver genuine business benefits.

Contact Ron Oliver at: rosignet@btinternet.com
Carl Kovacs - 04/12/04

Meeting Review - February 2005

Innovations

Innovation is one of the primary keys to survival in the ever-changing world of food manufacture. Businesses that innovate and adapt:

both internally (in terms of processes and operations) and
externally (in terms of product and service solutions)

are best able and most profitable in reacting to competitive market changes.

Strawberry Fields specialise in opening corporate minds to the problems and opportunities confronting businesses in all sectors of the economy. Clients include multi-national oil companies and regional food businesses. Director, John Rainford illustrated the Strawberry Fields' approach by leading delegates through a series of workshop exercises designed to flush out new, innovative thinking.

For example, John's "innovations toolbox" uses key words such as "water" and "time" to unlock fresh thinking. John illustrated how this approach had been used to develop a new "airline product" which has since materialised as "EasyJet".

Closer to home, delegates ran an exercise to focus on household waste reduction using Strawberry Fields' unique "Innovation Matrix" to identify and develop themes for genuinely novel solutions.

John subsequently highlighted how these same free thinking methods could be applied to all aspects of a business in order to generate innovative solutions.

John's colleague, David Mitchell, then turned the focus to manufacturing innovation exploring the benefits of root-cause analysis - asking 'Why?' - and linked this to value stream mapping to radically reduce the cost of waste.

If you missed the workshop and you'd like to find out more contact John via www.strawberryfields.com.
Carl Kovacs - 03/12/04

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