right across the company. To date 33 5S groups have been started, involv-
ing around a third of the 500 plus work force. The first of these to be started
was in the purchasing office. Jim not only doesn’t ask suppliers to do
things before Trico, he doesn’t ask the rest of the firm to do things before
he and his team have tried them. The result is that the purchasing depart-
ment, part of a large open-plan office, is extremely well organized. When
asked if he had any information on the Quest group Jim pulls out two
folders and within seconds can produce the exact piece of paper required.
This was not the case before becoming involved in 5S. Jim mentions in
passing that just after the 5S work started there was ‘much peering over
walls, and people came from right across the site to look at my desk – they
thought I must have left!’
The same attitude and attention to detail is now apparent wherever you
go inside the company. The 5S work, together with a number of other sep-
arate internal programmes, has transformed the organization and the
culture of the work force. This is now a company that is capable of becom-
ing a world-beater, and it has a group of suppliers to help it on the journey.
The experiences that Trico had in their 5S work, as well as those from the
operational staff from the other firms, was shared at a workshop in January
- This progress was brought back to the senior managers at a further
meeting in February 1996. At this seminar the relationship and atmosphere
was quite different from earlier meetings. With the exception of the firm
that had not really made any progress, everyone could see the benefits of
working together. What’s more, there were real tangible benefits. As a
result, the suppliers were no longer afraid when Jim Taylor again sug-
gested they implement a kanban delivery system. The reason is that the
suppliers can see that Trico do not ask anything if they are not willing to
do it themselves. They also do not ask the impossible and they stick to their
word. As a result, a similar awareness raising, learning and implementa-
tion programme is being commenced for kanban implementation at the
time of writing in spring 1996.
Impressions to date
Jim sits back in his chair and appears to echo the message given from
Rover some months before as he suggests that the Supplier Association has
been ‘extremely beneficial [with] results now showing – the best vehicle we
have seen for communicating to a group of suppliers’. Asked for an
example, rather humble about his own achievements, he gives one from a
plastic supplier. ‘The quality of product has already improved, as they
started their 5S activity in the warehouse. It soon resulted in a major time
saving for the team leader who could then address various quality issues
for product being shipped to us ... as a result quality has improved almost
The supplier and alliance market domain 193