Let’s paint you a picture….
A new colour-Ostuni Pearl White- which will be a major profitability driver for the business is required for all 22 model year cars.
However, the tricky technology needed to create the perfectly pearlised paint effect comes with a hefty £85,000 price tag, at a time when Halewood is trying to cut costs to protect the future of the business.
Tough call but what would you do? Would you accept the quote or would you challenge yourself to do things differently?
Inspired and spurred on by project Reset, that’s exactly what Steve Hughes, Lead Paint ME Programmes Engineer and his Paint Shop team did.
Steve said: “Had this been two years ago, it’s highly likely we would have brought in a contractor like Durr to make the software modifications needed for our robots to paint the new colour onto the cars- which is a challenge in itself as it is a tri-coat paint.
“But we are in a very different place now and every penny counts. We felt we had the skills ourselves and by a stroke of luck, Tom Garry in our team has trained with Durr and was confident he was the man for the job!”
Tom said: “JLR has invested in me to do training with Durr so it made sense for us to utilise these software skills rather than bring someone else in to do a job we could do ourselves- albeit a tricky one!
“I put forward the idea having had similar conversations with the ME Team in Solihull, who were instrumental to this project, as was Halewood’s Maintenance and PPM team who worked alongside us so we could get the trial going- it was an incredible team and cross plant effort.”
However rather than put the lid on the savings tin there, Steve decided more could be done to drive costs down. Instead of trialling the project at the weekend where shifts would be paid at the highest premium, the 40 hours required to do the trial was done over the night shifts saving Halewood an additional £7,000.
Yvette Murray, Manufacturing Production Specialist, for Paint, said: “This can do attitude from the team is exactly what we need to deliver essential cost savings for Halewood and make our processes more sustainable and efficient.
“The whole thinking behind this project to challenge everything and save every penny where we can shows real thought leadership and I couldn’t be more proud of them.”
The Ostuni Pearl White project team includes:
Paint ME- Steven Hughes, Ciarán Green, Bruce Hack and Tom Garry
PPM- Peter Shuker and Steve Lambourne
Maintenance- Chris Whiteside, Mike Saunders and Dave Maxwell
