To celebrate its success, G&H invited Gilruth and other VIPs, including David Thorpe of Scottish Enterprise and Pamela Stevenson of Fife Council, to tour the factory, meet staff and hear how the G&H team won the Sharing in Growth All Star award.
As part of the global G&H optical engineering and manufacturing group, G&H Glenrothes took on the target of increasing output by 23% in 2018. As this was double its previous growth rate, the company recognised that it would need specialist support.
G&H Glenrothes worked with Sharing in Growth (SiG), the government-backed competitiveness improvement programme, to implement world-class manufacturing techniques, such as value-stream mapping, waste elimination and continuous flow production. With SiG training in lean manufacturing, the team rose to the challenge and beat the target by delivering a 29% increase in output and a 200% improvement in year-on-year profits. A record monthly sales total was among further achievements.
The changes meant that G&H was more competitive and, as a result, the company secured £16 million in contracts and is now recruiting for additional engineers.
SiG’s experts were so impressed that at its annual awards ceremony in London, G&H Glenrothes was presented with a best-practice award.
Says G&H Glenrothes general manager Mark Merigot: “The Glenrothes team faced the monumental challenge of increasing output by 23% in a year. With huge support from Sharing in Growth’s experienced coaches, the team stepped up, took a disciplined approach to define, measure, analyse, improve and control their processes. The fantastic 29% growth rate achieved has set an important baseline upon which to improve further.”
