Leather professional wins prestigious UK manufacturing leadership award
17/12/2014
Kirsty Wainwright, operations excellence coordinator at Scottish Leather Group company NCT Leather, has won the Manufacturing Leader Award at the 2014 Manufacturing Champions Awards, organised by training and education body The Manufacturing Institute.
Ms Wainwright, a bioscience graduate, was presented with the award after successfully championing a new operational excellence programme at NCT Leather, the group's wet blue and wet white production facility in Bridge of Weir, Renfrewshire.
As part of the programme, she implemented a line-side manufacturing hub, at which employees on the shop floor gather twice a day to discuss gains in line-flow, equipment effectiveness and quality. As a result, Scottish Leather Group has calculated a 30% increase in throughput of hides in some areas, reduced overtime and a 50% reduction in the volume of waste sent to landfill.
She received the award at a special ceremony in Manchester at the start of December. She said afterwards: “I am very proud of the achievement; it’s great recognition for the good work our team does on our operational excellence programme and great motivation for us to continue doing so.”
The judges commented: “Kirsty single-handedly led and deployed operational excellence in a tough environment. She recognised the power of communication, built momentum and achieved genuine buy-in from a once sceptical workforce that has led to some fantastic results. Kirsty personifies the ethos of the Manufacturing Champions Awards: showing manufacturing is an exciting, interesting place to be, where you can achieve anything.”
Image shows Kirsty Wainwright (left) receiving the award from Dr Julie Madigan, chief executive of The Manufacturing Institute.
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