In April 2022, The Editor's Pick saw guest editor Philip Jepson speak with 4 industry leaders from the Made in Group regarding their latest news stories - with us here focusing on the insights provided by Clevedon Fasteners MD Steve Hardman.
Philip spoke with Steve regarding what trands had emerged in "post-pandemic manufacturing". This conversation was spawned from an titled "The Emerging Trends In Post-Pandemic Manufacturing at Clevedon Fasteners".
1. Putting Trust In The Workforce
Steve spoke about how Clevedon Fasteners decided to effectively remove their Planning Manager and instead gave autonomy to shop floor workers to control this aspect of the work. This decision relied on the company to put trust their workforce and place accountability down the ladder.
To do this, they had to let shopfloor worker know everything about customers, prices, high value jobs and more to ensure they could plan effectively. This strategy was ultimately effective, as it saw productivity and employee engagement go up.
2. The 4 Day Work Week
As the majority of companies, Clevedon Fasteners used to work to work 5 days a week. However, as is the case for many, Fridays was basically a non-day, for the natural reason of people looking ahead to the weekend, and often people would also book Fridays off for long weekends. OEE stats showed that friday was least productive day of the week for Clevedon Fasteners.
So Clevedo Fasteners decided to shift to a 4 day work week, working Monday-Thursday 6:30 - 4:30. And also people can instead work overtime on a Friday (which is easier than saturday). If anyone can work 4 days they should for productivity! This was ultimately effective as it saw productivity go up by 28%!
3. The Importance of Reshoring
The disruption caused by the pandemic meant that many supply chains were effected heavily. As pointed out by Steve, what good is a, say, 50% discount, if it never arrives in the first place!
For Clevedon Fasteners, as supply chains struggled to come to terms with the re-start following the pandemic, the knowledge of a shipment’s location and timing became imperative. And for Steve, reshoring is absolutely vital for supporting UK manufacturing as a whole moving forward.