LCM gets LEAN!

LCM PR & Marketing, based in Fareham, is the UK’s first PR & Marketing agency to have completed a LEAN manufacturing systems project in the service sector.

The initiative with Ebis, the consultancy arm of EEF South (Engineering Employers Federation), is designed to apply manufacturing principles to professional services companys enabling them to be more efficient.

Lean originates from the manufacturing industries and created by Toyota when it was struggling against US and UK car manufacturers. Its primary aim is to shorten the time taken from receiving an order until it is delivered to the customer, and defines itself based on five key steps.

EEF South has developed internal improvement workshops, training and assisting staff to concentrate on specific processes or functions within the business. Through scrutinising these processes, cuts can be made to the amount of time that the processes take, therefore increasing the efficency of the task. EEF have been working with LCM to trial the LEAN application to the service industry, using the internal processes within the company to streamline the service that they provide to their clients. The service companies that EEF have been working with, including LCM have already seen the improvements it has made to their work, creating average savings of time and resources of £50,000 – a substantial return on investment.

Lizz Clarke, Managing Director of LCM, said, “It became clear to us at the seminar that manufacturers were significantly increasing their profitability by radically reviewing the way they operate.  We basically sell time and therefore we are expecting the impact on our organisation to be strong, because the more profitably we spend that time the healthier it is for the company.”

LCM clients have already seen the benefits of the principles of LEAN, with project handling and client processes becoming more streamlined and efficient, maximising value and freeing up account manager time to spend on other issues for the client. “The training has changed the way that we view how our time is spent, and has allowed us to develop a number of documents and concepts that are working really well for our clients and for us. All of the inefficiencies that you don’t notice were highlighted and we were able to see the stages in a project that were wasting time and money. By eliminating them, we can cut back the time we spend on a job without sacrificing the quality of our work, something that is very important to us,” Account Manager George Roberts explains.

Neil Fedden of the EEF said: “LCM has helped us gather a number of service companies together to do a pilot project and I can’t wait for the first case histories to be developed on the results.”