SC21 (National Action Plan for 21st Century Supply Chains) is a change programme which aims to accelerate the competitiveness of the UK's defence and aerospace industry by raising the quality performance of its supply chains.
It has made only 27 bronze awards around the country. Groveley’s award was presented at Farnborough 2010, where it was exhibiting.
In the process of qualifying for the award, Christchurch-based Groveley gained instant benefits in staff and workflow efficiencies – leading to extra capacity.
It trained its entire workforce to a minimum NVQ2 level in BIT (Business Improvement Techniques), which focuses on lean manufacturing and continuous improvement. It teaches the workforce how to identify and eliminate waste, create flow and improve quality leading to greater efficiency and increased profitability.
Managing director Peter Bennet said: “We have supplied precision engineered components to the aerospace and defence markets for 40 years and signed up to SC21 to improve our position in the supply chain.
“Our staff were brilliant and really bought into it and as a result are a more cohesive workforce that understands the business strategy.
“With efficiency up, we have created extra capacity to take on more precision engineering work. And on top of that we are now achieving 100 per cent on-time delivery.
“The award has a lot of credibility - as a direct result we are now in discussions with new defence and aerospace companies which we hope will lead to new contracts.
“Now we have gained the bronze SC21 award, we’re moving on to silver and gold levels.”
www.groveley-precision.co.uk
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Picture: Groveley’s Peter Bennet (centre) and Stuart Leaper (left) with SC21’s Russ Armitage
