Why is Buck & Hickman backing the Best Factory Awards 2014?
Buck & Hickman is backing the Best Factory Awards again this year as we believe that celebrating best-in-class manufacturing performance is extremely important, particularly in challenging times of global competition.
Great Britain is built on industrial innovation, boasting leading technology development and defining manufacturing standards in many industry sectors including aerospace, automotive, rail, food and drink, pharmaceuticals and many more.
By celebrating success and excellence in manufacturing, and with these historic pillars of manufacturing heritage in mind, we remind ourselves not only why constant innovation and the highest manufacturing standards are so important in maintaining our global competitiveness – but that in British manufacturing, there's much to be proud of.
What should manufacturers know about Buck & Hickman?
We are the leading and value-adding specialist distributor of tools, maintenance and health and safety products. Our core competencies are personal protection equipment (PPE), hand, power, cutting and grinding tools, abrasives, adhesives, lubricants, welding and many other consumable products for general maintenance and production.
In times of increased need for lean principles and practices, and for the benefit of lowered manufacturing costs and increased productivity, Buck & Hickman provides its customers with a range of services that address important business issues around supply, stock management, stock control, and the movement and flow or consumables products around the factory floor, 'purchase to pay' cost reduction.
Our solutions also cover product and process standardisation, and help to support and deliver 5S manufacturing principles. One such service is the Buck & Hickman Industrial Vending Service, Invend, through which we enable our customers to achieve significant cost savings.
It's a system built and developed from over 15 years' experience in this area, and provides improved visibility and control over consumables usage, including real-time reporting by employee and cost centre.
Q What's your favourite UK-manufactured product and why?
My favourite UK-manufactured product is the Rolls-Royce Trent Engine (turbo-prop and turbo-fan turbine aviation systems). This incredible piece of engineering embodies everything that's great about British design and manufacturing, from the diversification from an original British concept and idea by British engineers and financiers, to the leap in technological advancement in aviation though financial, operational and technical challenges.
Thanks to a hallmark of quality, safety, manufacturing excellence and leading financial performance spanning over 7 decades, for me the Rolls-Royce Trent engine and its associated development represents the very Best of British.
What do you wish was made in GB?
Though designed by a Brit, Sir Jonathan Ive, I wish that the iPod, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and MacBook range of products were made in the UK. It's an amazing achievement to not only have set an incredibly high standard of personal computing and personal digital products, but to then continue to evolve them to meet customer demand – all while up against fierce creative competition and financial powers such as Microsoft, IBM, Samsung and Sony. That is a story about belief and determination.
If you could bestow one gift on UK manufacturing, what would that be?
I would create a vision of UK manufacturing that made manufacturing industry so appealing, inspiring and rewarding that an unlimited pool of enthusiastic talent flooded into the UK's research and development facilities, design offices, production halls, continuous improvement teams, purchasing, supply chain, marketing and sales departments every year.
It would start early, from primary schools upwards, so that young people growing up would aspire to a career in manufacturing above all the other options in today's jobs market.
What makes British manufacturing great?
Belief, pride, tenacity, creativity and uncompromising quality standards make British manufacturing great.
What is the best business advice you've ever received?
Simply – to try something. It's fine to make a mistake – just never make the same mistake twice. I wonder if Charles Rolls, Sir F. Henry Royce and Sir Frank Whittle were ever given the same advice… I'd like to think so.
