Biffa Waste Services Limited – Recovery, Treatment & Transport Division
January - April 2007: General Manager
Recovery & Treatment (R&T) is one of three main operational divisions in BWS Ltd, and has a turnover of over £120 million. The initial brief of the three-month interim contract as General Manager was to review the processes within Technical Customer Services to eliminate non-value-adding activity and improve customer focus and service levels. The contract also covered development of PDA routing technology for the transport network, and consolidation of transport depots to improve cost control and performance. An option for outsourcing of the complete transport division to a third-party logistics company was costed and development put underway.
Biffa Waste Services Limited, Environmental Services Division (BES)
July 2006 – December 2006: General Manager.
“Mike has introduced robust processes that have allowed BES to go forward and seek new business with a confident and efficient team” - Adrian Rees, General Manager, BES Ltd
BWS Ltd is arguably one of the largest waste management companies in Europe with a turnover of over £380 million. An initial three-month interim role as General Manager was extended to five months and covered the review of current working practices and development of new processes to improve service performance to its core customer, Severn Trent Water plc. The main gains were increased response to emergency flooding, process optimisation generating an improvement in delivery attainment to maintenance programmes from 30% to 85% and an reduction in invoice accrual from 80% to under 5% of turnover.
Concord:marlin Ltd
2005 –2006: Business Process Turnaround Programme Manager
C:m is a OEM manufacturer and supplier of speciality lighting products to the retail, hotel, educational and health sectors. An initial three-month interim contract was converted to a fifteen-month term to develop and implement a company wide business turnaround programme. The programme covered projects in Service, Quality, NPD&I, Cost Reduction, Leadership, Portfolio Rationalisation, Lean Manufacturing and Stock Management Systems.
The company benefited from a reduction in cost base of 5% COGS in the first year, with identified savings of 5.8% COGS going forward. It also saw reduction in inventory valuation of 10% whilst maintaining optimised stock levels, providing an increase in serviceability from 80% to over 95%. A number of product lines and raw materials were successfully outsourced to the Far East as part of the cost reduction initiative, along with relocation and consolidation of factories from central London to the South coast of England.
Whiteghyll Plastics Limited
2003-2004: Lean facilitator
"Sarah Bower is carried away by the enthusiasm of Michael Rimmer, Head of Operations at Whiteghyll Plastics, for the way his company has embraced and benefited from change.”
- The Manufacturer Magazine December 2004
A twelve month contract initially as a ‘Lean Facilitator’ as part of the unique Fellowship in Manufacturing Management at Cranfield University transformed the operations of this SME point of sale manufacturing company based in Bradford, West Yorkshire. Implementation strategy covered Kanban, Cellular manufacture, Hijunka scheduling systems, process mapping, 5S, and workplace organisation.
The implementation ‘roadmap’ generated significant results over the period, including an increase in GM of 15%, capacity uplift by 200% and a one-thousand-fold increase in shop floor utilisation.
“Mike more than fulfilled expectations, bringing achievement and success to Whiteghyll, as well as setting up some superb examples of visual lean manufacturing, which would stand scrutiny from the best. Mike also learned much about himself, and his skills and capabilities in leading others. To his credit he kept his nerve, listened and focused on his goals” - Melanie Armstrong, Industrial Phase Tutor, Cranfield University, Association of Manufacturing Managers Newsnet 32, September 2004.