A local business is saving £56,000 against the previous cost of one of its key processes, after taking part in the Optimum Skills ‘Lean Six Sigma Principles Skills Bootcamp’.
The programme, which offers businesses the opportunity to look at the way they operate, making time and, ultimately, cost savings, has also helped a small business to save £3,800 against what one of its processes was previously costing them.
Lynda Ferguson, senior operations manager at Optimum Skills, explained the course provides an in-depth look at processes within an organisation, measuring their effectiveness and eliminating things that don’t contribute to the end result.
“Working through a particular process on the course enables businesses to maximise the capability of the process they are looking to make more efficient,” she says.
Nigel Thompson, business apprenticeship tutor, adds: “We are looking at taking out waste – anything that’s not value-added, such as removing unnecessary transport between tools, ingredients, or elements you need to complete a process.
“The course has now been completed by various businesses across the North-East and it’s had a major positive impact on a large number of organisations.”
Optimum Skills’ trainers can deliver the course at a business’ own premises, so they can work directly on a process, while some businesses prefer to break away from their surroundings and be part of a cohort mixing with other organisations at an external training centre.
Charley Haigh, apprenticeship account manager, said: “All the companies that we have worked with have saved thousands of pounds by looking at their processes.
“Businesses have the opportunity to select a process within their workplace as a live project, so they feel the benefit of what they are doing pretty much immediately.
“Within the North-East, we worked with a company to look at a process which was taking 2,000-man hours and cost £110,000.
“A new process they implemented straight away brought the cost down to £54,000 and the man hours have dropped to less than 500.”
All this was achieved in a period of six weeks.
Another company is working on a new way to print outer box labels with more production efficiency, aiming to save more than 30 minutes per shift, and around £350 per shift, while Optimum have helped the business to create a more efficient way of loading wagons, saving them around 10-20 minutes per load.
Charley adds: “It’s not just about the big businesses either – smaller businesses have implemented projects that we have worked on and seen savings of £3,800.”
Optimum Skills offers the course one day a week over a six-week period, or three days per week for two weeks, although they can be flexible on exactly how it’s delivered depending on the business’ needs.
Adam Jenkins, apprenticeship account manager, explains: “We are quite flexible with dates – we can accommodate courses held at company premises or at one of our training hubs and make it bespoke to the individual business.
“Some businesses like to do it at their own premises as it takes out that element of having to travel somewhere else off-site.
“We can make the training fully bespoke to that business’ needs.”
Charley adds: “We also see people from different organisations coming together to bounce ideas off each other and get a different perspective from someone outside the organisation.”
Before supporting any business, the team at Optimum Skills take the time to gather information about the process they want to try to improve, carrying out a site visit before the training so they can visualise their processes in action.
Training can then be prepared and made completely bespoke before the course starts based on this knowledge.
Funding is available for the course, with employers benefiting from a “massively reduced rate” of £284 or £854, depending on how many employees the company has and other criteria, which is a drop in the ocean compared to the savings companies can potentially make. Self-employed people can even get it for free.
Charley says: “We really want this to benefit local companies and want everyone around us, especially on the business park, to be successful by taking advantage of the ways we can help them.”
For more information, visit optimumskills.co.uk/training-courses/course-routeways/skills-bootcamps-in-six-sigma-principles/
