The Organisation:
Hydratron is a specialist business that designs, manufactures, and supplies high-pressure hydraulic, gas, and pneumatic equipment to customers worldwide. They are highly skilled at translating customer needs into technical solutions for the management of flow control and high-pressure systems. Recognised for their ability to produce innovative high-quality solutions they supply the following sectors: Aerospace; Automotive; Energy; Marine; Oil & Gas; Petrochemical.
The Challenge:
Fin Beveridge – the MD – faced with a significant reduction in demand from one of its key sectors saw the potential to apply Lean Thinking throughout the business to reduce manufacturing lead time, and improve efficiency to enable them to better position themselves in their market.
The Approach:
Working initially with Hydraton’s senior team, and then with everyone in the business we deployed The Excellence Partnership’s Lean Thinking framework:
- Ran an awareness-raising session to develop everyone’s understanding of lean.
- Delivered an in-depth training programme - relevant to Hydratron - for a group of Lean Champions who were tasked with leading lean improvement work.
- Coached the Lean Champions to improve two key areas in the business: Information flow; and product manufacture.
Developed and implemented a significantly more effective way to manufacture and supply one of Hydratron’s major product groups.
The Outcome:
The application of lean thinking at Hydratron enabled the business to reduce lead time for a key product group by 75% and increased productivity by 42%.
It supported the creation of a culture of improvement. Further lean projects were carried out to improve the business, enabling it to better meet the needs of its customers more effectively.
Fin Beveridge the MD said “The work we’ve done with The Excellence Partnership has been a great help to our business, allowing us to go through significant change to meet the needs of very demanding customers. We’ve now got a far more effective and sustainable business and we’re certainly better placed to meet customer’s needs.”