The Forestry Commission

Groundbreaking work at the Forestry Commission

British icon uses lessons from Japanese manufacturing to save significant money and improve their efficiency.

Basingstoke, Hampshire, 20th January 2010:

Top manufacturing companies have embraced, improved, and profited by lean production methods. Now The Forestry Commission has demonstrated that the payoffs can be nearly as dramatic for service industries applying Lean principles.

The Forestry Commission deliver practical programmes to make sure that, as communities and individuals, we can get the most from them and their responsibilities span research, commercial timber production, sustainability programmes and policy, as well as learning and leisure.

Their tree nursery and grading facilities at Delamere and Wykeham have been working with leading Lean consultancy, Fedden-USP headed by specialist Neil Fedden.

An initial series of training workshops enabled the teams of staff within the Commission‟s production units to apply those new skills to identify ways in which the processes and operations could be improved.

Neil explained: “the theory is illustrated with case studies from garden centres, growers and manufacturers within the growing sector supply chains, all of whom can demonstrate significant cost savings and business efficiency improvements.”
“These case studies illustrate how businesses have benefitted from improved process efficiencies, reduced stock levels, reduced wastage, reduced lead-times, improved customer service levels and reduced bottlenecks in both despatch and merchandising.” Neil added.

Peter Everitt of The Forestry Commission said: “Our teams worked with Neil, using their newly acquired skills and the enthusiasm that was generated, to take a hard look, with Neil‟s expert support, at the way they work. To maximise our return, we will need to make some small capital investments but the time to recover the costs is a matter of months”.

“We rely on a highly motivated and efficient team and the main benefits of working with Fedden-USP were a revitalised team spirit, opportunities to reduce staff turnover, a speedier induction process for new staff and increased efficiency.” Peter added.

Further information, or advice on accessing Government funding for training and development in business improvement techniques, can be obtained by calling Neil

Fedden at Fedden-USP on 07899 971183 or contacting him via the website www.fedden-usp.co.uk