Hone-All Precision achieves SC21 Bronze Award in record time
2 mins read
At the end of December 2009, Hone-All Precision signed up as a 'self-starter' to SC21, the collaborative programme designed to accelerate improvements in the competitiveness of the UK's aerospace and defence industry by raising the performance of its supply chain.
Many of the smaller businesses have been 'sponsored' by top tier customers, although 26-employee Hone-All Precision decided to take an independent route to achieving the Bronze level status currently accorded to some 35 suppliers. "The team here enjoys a challenge and, having successfully achieved AS 9100 accreditation in September 2009 within six months, we were determined to satisfy the exacting requirements of SC21 in the shortest possible timescale," says Wayne Wilson, quality manager and joint SC21 champion.
To help meet this challenge Hone-All Precision looked to TEC Concepts, a specialist training and implementation organisation focused on business development. A five-day programme of diagnostic workshops was duly tailored to Hone-All Precision's specific requirements, one of more than 40 such programmes implemented to date by TEC Concepts.
Specialising in deep hole boring, deep hole drilling, gundrilling, CNC turning and CNC honing, the Leighton Buzzard subcontracting company submitted its SC21 application within four short months of beginning the actual process, having exceeded the recently-upgraded Bronze level performance requirements of 90-95 per cent on-time deliveries and 98-99.5 per cent quality performance.
Joint SC21 champion and company director, Andrea Rodney said: "Achieving SC21 in such a short time frame has been a real team effort. The metrics, measures and business plan were all in place and simply needed aligning to the requirements of SC21. If you can see real business benefits of implementing a system, with support and co-operation, you can achieve anything and within any time frame you desire – you just need to commit to it wholeheartedly.
"The incentive for every participant taking part in this supply chain improvement programme is that successful implementation of SC21 provides incontrovertible evidence of an individual supplier's determination to be truly world class."
SC21, which is backed by A|D|S – the trade body formed by the merger of Association of Police and Public Security Suppliers (APPSS), the Defence Manufacturers Association (DMA) and the Society of British Aerospace Companies (SBAC) - is a crucial element in the UK aerospace industry's drive to remove duplication and improve efficiency within the supply chain.
In his role as chairman of the SC21 task force Peter Hogg heads a team comprising the top 22 major suppliers to the UK aerospace industry. He says that while SC21 is a relatively recent introduction it is "resulting already in performance improvements, better delivery, better quality, and reduced overheads and cost because suppliers only have to face a particular problem once within a multiple customer base. This is good news for our major customer, the Government and MoD, and for the UK economy as a whole."
