SEMTA award celebration for EMC's SELL initiative

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The EMC’s SELL (Suppliers Engagement in Lean Learning) programme was a recent finalist at the SEMTA Skills Award in London, with colleagues responsible for the creation and delivery of the project there to celebrate the achievement.

The awards recognise talented individuals and businesses that make advanced manufacturing and engineering one of the highest skilled sectors in the UK.

Rita Davey, Skills Programme Manager at Jaguar Land Rover, said: “We were absolutely delighted to be shortlisted as a finalist in the ‘Skills Innovation’ category. The quality of the award submissions were very high and in order to decide on the winner the category had to go to an external judge for the final selection.

“We took a number of suppliers to event from our Powertrain network group, all of whom found the celebration motivational and inspirational.

Together we continue to collaborate as part of the programme to increase people capability, supporting a drive for excellence and for business performance.”

The SELL programme continues to gather momentum, with the latest group of team leaders visiting suppliers and suppliers paying reciprocal visits to the EMC.

The key focus for SELL is 5S, Standard Work Confirmation, Kaizen and Level Zero and other processes and tools.

Trevor Leeks, Operations Director at the EMC, has been pivotal in supporting the creation of the SELL programme.

He said: “SELL is about supplier and customer engagement and aims to improve real and tangible metrics for suppliers through the people who add value to the product. This is done by driving improvements on the front line (the shop floor) through lean tools, systems, technics and processes. The programme is being delivered by the associate team at the EMC for supplier team leaders, so it works as a peer to peer project.”

So far SELL has involved 14 suppliers to the EMC and over 50 team leaders have benefitted from a unique programme of activities.

One team leader commented on the programme and said: “It has opened my eyes to how suppliers work and how important they are to our business, being able to produce quality products. Strong working relationships can help this.”