Brian Winch, following Trevor Smedley, came in on a temporary basis, before the appointment of Jeff Armitage and proved to be a whirlwind. At first I thought him to be a loose cannon - an unguided missile. But, I soon learned he was an Exorcet, on target and deadly at seeking out waste and idleness. Jeff came in and began wholesale improvements in accountability and manufacturing performance. He was typical of a busy man, the adage ‘if you want a job done, give it to a busy man’ applied perfectly to Jeff. He possessed infinite personal capacity. He established friendly discipline and was able to nurture and develop his team members consistently hitting targets. He went on to become MD of GKN Aerospace.
Cellular Development
The manufacturing cells improved and Phil Casey joined us who had a flair for cellular design and improvement. In the end we were designing and creating cells to produce vehicle sets, rather than component assemblies for example a pedal box. A customer vehicle needs a pedal box, a gearshift and a handbrake, why not produce the full set on a single cell!
PBR Scheme
Trevor Smedley, in a sideways move, did a fine job of introducing the new productivity scheme to replace the old piecework system, which was now past it sell-by date. It was a pure productivity scheme. No allowances for late material, breakdowns or other issues impacting on productivity. Jim Robinson had been instrumental in selecting it and done a great job. In essence the scheme delivered: for every £1 saved through productivity, 50p went to the team and 50p to the company.
In four years, Rearsby didn’t award a general annual pay increase. Our customers would not pay for such. In fact, they wanted year on year price reductions from us, in spite of raw material price increases. However, the productivity scheme, to which indirect and staff payment was linked, did generate quite reasonable wage and salary increases year on year. The external trade union officials just couldn’t reconcile themselves to a zero annual wage increase and began agitating action to force us into annual wage/salary awards.
This was irrespective of the fact that actual annual PBR wage and salary increases exceeded any likely annual award. The union officials swept into the business annually and didn’t understand the market we operated in. I just couldn’t engage them in our quest, in our journey. I took the decision to derecognise Trade Unions at Rearsby.
One Trade Union official, whom I’d never met and had never visited Rearsby, demanded to know why we were derecognising trade unions.
I replied that I needed to work directly with my own workforce without outsiders who didn’t understand where we were going and how we needed to get there. In short, I didn’t want to work with trade unions and I didn’t want a relationship with trade unions. He replied saying it was “Typical of management: they never give a straight answer” I didn’t know how to put it any plainer!
Following the ‘Failure to Agree’ at the last stage of procedure, it was up to either side to take appropriate action, for example strike action from the union.
I gathered the workforce together and I was firm…
“I am NOT going back to the 70s. I would rather pack up here and now. There’s no future back there - none for any of us. The industry has totally changed. As promised the PBR scheme has delivered significant wage/salary increases and I have offered you a Works Council. I will pay all employees for legal representation against the company in the event of an accident at work or unfair dismissal – the same benefits that you have by being union members.
“Our customers demanded year on year price reductions - that was our future - that was the real world. The unions had called for a strike. That was their right and is your right but in doing so, you break your contract of employment. Conversely, my right is to dismiss those who withdraw labour and I will do that.”
I placed ‘Jobs available at Rearsby’ ads in local newspapers on the eve of the proposed strike. Looking back, that was probably the biggest gamble I took in 25 years!
All employees turned up for work the following day.
The top team were committed to making the productivity scheme a big success. Even top production managers, like Jimmy Green, would come to me and say “Look I have some people who were held up waiting for materials. They are short (of earnings). Can’t we do something (make up the shortfall)?” “NO Jim. It’s a productivity scheme. Were they productive? No. Was it their fault? No. Is it fair? No. It’s our job to stop those things happening but not to pay for non-productive work. Not to corrupt the scheme, but make it work. The day we do that, just once, we are finished as far as this scheme is concerned. It will be dead.”
Les Tustin came up with a great idea ‘Hospitals’. He argued when you are ill, you go to hospital. Therefore when a team can’t be productive due to problems, let’s put the team (cell) into ‘Hospital’. A director would chair Hospital meetings with the local management and two team members present. We paid for team members to attend management meetings. Buyers, engineers and others had to be on ‘stand-by’. It was called a ‘Hospital Meeting’, they must attend and immediately. Where the problem was with a supplier, they would be invited to attend. On one occasion, Les demanded the supplier’s MD attend.
He was first invited to meet the cell members, mainly women. They gave him a pasting, pointing out his company’s performance had cost them dearly in lost wages. This was real to them - not a game. He later reported, he’d never endured such a customer pasting in his career. Things improved remarkably and fast.
Hospital Meetings were great success. As they began to gain results and the positive news spread, we had queues of Cells wanting to be admitted to Hospital!
Business Clinic, was another Les idea. If you’re not ill, but want to improve you go to the clinic. So, why not place the whole business in a clinic? Great idea. The top team of directors and management met every Friday afternoon to review that week’s performance. Outstanding. David Johnson, rose to the challenge and produced a weekly profit and loss account. Outstanding. Les Tustin was particularly good at grinding out the last detail. In fact, I made him Chairman of the Business Clinic as he was so much better at it than me.