Newsprinters Eurocentral plant in Scotland has become the first UK site to win the global Shingo Prize for manufacturing excellence. This success stems from adopting a set of seven guiding principles including honesty, dynamism, and respect. These principles have helped foster a culture of employee engagement that has led to over £2.5 million in savings and improvements in manufacturing efficiency from 65% to 85%. The principles were inspired by thinkers like Deming and Covey and are displayed prominently throughout the plant. Living these principles every day, including walking the talk as managers, has been key to transforming the culture and driving continuous improvement.

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How seven principles took Newsprinters to the top of the world

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S
o enlightened is the mood at Newsprinters Eurocentral plant that
you half expect to find operators adopting the lotus position. The
site just outside of Glasgow is where spirituality meets 5S. Adopting a
Ten Commandments-style set of aspirational principles including
honesty, dynamism and respect has freed the plant to transcend onto
a higher plane, becoming the first ever UK winner of the Shingo Prize –
a global award for manufacturing excellence.
“A tool doesn’t change mindsets; principles do,” says George
Donaldson, continuous improvement manager at
Newsprinters. “That’s what consultants
don’t bring. From Dan Jones to Womack,
they’ve created the tools. Every consultant
can come in and do a 5S programme. But
what they’re now realising is that what they
didn’t see at companies like Toyota was the
culture – the willingness to engage.”
The ‘C’ word, it seems, remains beyond the
pale as manufacturing chiefs look for the fastest
route to becoming world-class. “It’s easier to
focus on tools,” reflects Ross McCombe, senior
site manager at Eurocentral, one of three
Newsprinters’ sites. “It’s difficult to change
behaviour and people: it’s a long term thing to do.
“People won’t admit it: they’ll say ‘I just don’t
think those principles are right for us’. But I would
have an argument with anyone that they aren’t correct and you
can’t apply them to your business.”
Those rolling up their sleeves right now and bemoaning all things
soft and fluffy might want to take a closer look. Besides becoming
Britain’s only winner of the overall Shingo Prize in 27 years,
Newsprinters credits more than £2.5 million in savings to employee
engagement. Waste bills at the site have dropped from 7% to under 3%
since 2007 – a £4m saving – and manufacturing efficiency, the printing
world’s answer to OEE, has soared from 65% to 85% in the same
period. All achieved against the constant threat of redundancy as
Newsprinters feels the pinch of 7% annual declines in newspaper sales.
Cicero meets Deming: the seven principles
The feats stem from the Socrates and Plato of manufacturing
management in Donaldson and McCombe. The duo cite W Edwards
Deming [lean manufacturing guru], Stephen Covey [US business
author] and Roman orator Cicero as key influences in the
Newsprinters Way; a set of seven principles (honesty, dynamism,
respect, commitment, motivation, responsibility, and flexibility).
Encouragement and empowerment run deep at the plant.
Management by the KPI is abandoned in favour of tapping into
people’s primordial desire to see a job well done. “I’m a great believer
in respecting history and people who’ve done it right before you,” says
McCombe. “The right things are the right things – you just have to find
your own way of saying it.”
For Newsprinters that begins, quite naturally, in print. Corridors are
decked with posters of employees holding up cards emblazoned with
the seven principles and personal achievements logs, which display
employees’ (including managers) training records and
professional or personal achievements. A drab
corridor is transformed into a tapestry of
togetherness.
Actions speak louder than words
However, the principles amount to more than just
pretty wallpaper, stresses McCombe. “You have to
live them day-to-day,” he explains, with an
emphasis on managers. “What happens a lot in
business is that managers and leaders think,
somehow, they’ve been promoted beyond
having to behave the right way, and have a
different set of rules.” The mirror is a vastly
underrated management accessory agrees
Donaldson: “Attitudes are just a reflection. If
you give off a good vibe then you’ll get one back.”
Alongside a management team prepared to walk the talk there’s one
final ingredient for anyone contemplating the path to enlightenment:
patience. “It’s almost blind faith,” accepts Donaldson. “Our MD has never
once put a timeframe on it because it’s hard. As Covey says: ‘slow is fast
with people and fast is slow’. The businesses that throw this in today and
want it done by the end of the week will take longer. If you just do the
right things and listen to people you’ll get the buy in. If you govern by the
watch, you’ll fail; if you govern by the compass – be governed by what’s
the right thing to do – then you’ll succeed.”
Times were not always so illuminated. Newsprinters, one of three
UK printing sites owned by News International, moved to its £56m
greenfield home at Eurocentral in 2007. The plant was part of Rupert
Murdoch’s bid to bring higher quality newspapers more quickly to
Scottish readers.
The kit might have been state-of-the-art but the attitudes at the
time weren’t, recalls McCombe. “We were the same people who
worked at Kinning Park (former site), which was always a bit messy.
The behaviours were always going to transfer across... We were given
this vision of being recognised as the best newspaper manufacturer in
the world. But we really didn’t know how we went about it?”
Donaldson aimed to provide some answers and instigated the
site’s first 5S campaign. The former Lothian-trained electrical
apprentice who had joined Newsprinters from a CI role on The Toronto
Star was quickly reacquainted with some familiar local vernacular.
Newsprinters Eurocentral has just become the first ever UK site to win the global Shingo Prize for ops excellence. Success
wasn’t down to Six Sigma, or 5S, but the adoption of an enlightened set of guiding principles. Max Gosney explains
Photography:IainMcLean
Read all about it...
Name: George Donaldson
CV: Group CI manager at Newsprinters
with responsibility for three UK sites,
including Eurocentral. Seconded to
Eurocentral in 2007 and implemented the
site’s 5S campaign before adding ISO
standards, SMED and TPM. Joined the
Newsprinters Group from The Toronto Star
(Canada’s largest newspaper) in 2007
where he was the engineering and CI
manager.
Management philosophy: “Respect for
every individual, constancy of purpose,
inclusion and continuous improvement.”
Role models: W Edwards Deming and
Stephen Covey.
George Donaldson: Factfile
Name: Ross McCombe
CV: Site manager at Eurocentral since
2011. Promoted to the role after leading
the roll out of TPM, SMED and ISO 9001
within a continuous improvement task
force. Initially worked as an
implementation engineer during the
transition to Eurocentral in 2007 and has
been with Newsprinters since 1986.
Management philosophy: “Only
through the engagement of a business’s
greatest asset – its staff – can we ever
hope to deliver on a business’s true
potential. Building a culture of respect,
trust, challenge and innovation is key to
this transformational change.”
Role models: “I generally find
inspiration from many areas and people,
but my biggest influence is the lessons
have I learned from my sporting life. My
biggest personal influencers have been
George Donaldson and the philosophies
of Stephen Covey.”
Ross McCombe: Factfile
»
COVER STORY

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“The immediate reaction was that it
wasn’t going to work. Stick it up your arse,” he recalls.
Unperturbed, he pulled together key shopfloor personnel and pushed
on with implementation.
“One night we couldn’t find any shop vacuums,” he recalls. “So the
guy in charge said: ‘order two’ because that was the old way, if we
could solve a problem with money, then we did. When we completed
the 5S, we‘d found 13 shop vacs – we were only looking for one.” The
maths provided a powerful wakeup call even for traditionally change
resistant engineers recalls Donaldson. “They bought-in pretty much
straight away after that.”
With 5S flourishing, Donaldson teamed up with McCombe and
successfully implemented the ISO 9001 quality management standard
and SMED. In 2010, the duo turned their attention to a sort of own
brand Total Productive Maintenance, which extended beyond
maintenance to all aspects of operations, especially people.
Eurocentral was sub-divided into 12 quality processes (QP) under
the Total Productive Manufacturing model, with each QP team
empowered to drive improvements. There, amid the flipcharts and
Post It notes, Donaldson and McCombe had their epiphany. “People
were being engaged and listened to for the first time,” recalls
Donaldson. “We brought them into a group and said: ‘what do we
need to look at today?’ They were telling us: ‘look at this process: we
run over here or under there’. We found so many improvements,
almost £1.5m in the first 18 months.”
The momentum fast tracked employee engagement as the site’s
Dig out the polo neck sweater and work that Gallic shrug – finding a
philosophy has been critical to Newsprinters’ road to
manufacturing excellence.
But how do you go about instigating a code of ethics at your
site? Does it pay the bills? Or will you end up like a hopeless flock
of seagulls following the trawler?
WM meditates on the five big questions about the path to
enlightenment
1
What is a philosophy? This is the set of beliefs governing
the way your site operates. There is a close correlation with
culture, or, in manufacturing parlance: ‘the way we do things
around here’. Think of a philosophy as your factory’s tribal code.
The rules are typically covert, but anyone who breaks them can
expect the same browbeating as a bolshie young chimp who
dares to break troop etiquette. The trick, according to Donaldson,
is to shape a philosophy that reinforces useful behaviours.
“Employees start challenging each other: ‘hey, that doesn’t belong
there’, or ‘clean up your mess’. There’s no better police force than
the workers, if they’re properly engaged.”
2
Does a philosophy make you more profitable? Doing it for
the money is a bit like stuffing a platinum Visa in the church
alms purely to skip the queue at the pearly gates. Principles should
be driven by a deeper sense of purpose, according to Donaldson.
Rewards can follow. A successful philosophy is a stepping stone to
boosting employee engagement, which has proven benefits on
performance. But, be warned, says Donaldson, a philosophy is not a
goal. “We’ve got someone in our company who thinks it’s a
project – just write a line in there and we’ll achieve that by the end
of the month. It’s not a project, it’s a constancy of purpose.”
3
What is Newsprinters’ philosophy? The Newsprinters Way
is a code of conduct based on seven key principles (honesty,
dynamism, respect, commitment, motivation, responsibility and
flexibility). All employees, including managers, are expected to apply
the principles in daily working life. The philosophy follows the
teachings of Deming who prescribed a more compassionate attitude
from managers towards their workforce. Deming called for the
rejection of management by incentive and to create an environment
of trust, interdependence and pride in workmanship. Deming also
Deep and meaningful: the performance-enhancing powers of finding a philosophy
called for a unifying purpose for all, which, in Newsprinters’ case, was
to become the best manufacturer in the world.
4
How do you translate the theory into practice? It starts
with you. Nothing destroys a code of conduct faster than a
hypocritical leader. Signs and posters are an excellent way to
reinforce and promote target behaviours, but calling for respect on
the whiteboard while balling out an operator in front of it is
counterproductive. Leaders ensured the principles became a central
discussion point on site and raising the topic at training,
management meetings and out on the shopfloor. They also showed
an interest in their employees beyond the factory gate, in line with
Deming’s theory that managers must better understand what makes
their employees tick to get the best out of them.
“We asked what don’t we know about you?” says Donaldson. “It’s
amazing what we have found out: we have former professional
footballers, a former storesman of the year, a policewoman – the
knowledge and backgrounds people bring is phenomenal.” Uncovering
previously hidden talents has seen staff create a mural on the
company’s history, a factory tour video and backing music. There’s also
a general boost in morale through site leaders showing an interest
says Donaldson. “People are proud. They just want an opportunity to
raise their voice.”
5
Where do I buy the guide book?
It’s not available at all good book stores, stresses Donaldson. “There
is no model, no road map. You have to apply the principles in the way
that’s right for your business.” Try learning from other enlightened
manufacturers, he advises. Newsprinters took a factory tour of former
Best Factory Award winner, Uktraframe, at the beginning of its journey.
The site has also benchmarked against multiple Shingo Prize winners
and applied learning’s from The Shingo Institute in the US via The
Manufacturing Institute in the UK. The Shingo model recognises culture
and guiding principles as two of five components in ops excellence
alongside results, systems and tools like 5S or Six Sigma.
Find out more at:
● www.deming.org
● www.shingoprize.org
● http://tinyurl.com/o4x5lxg
Established: In 2007 as part of £56m upgrade by parent
company, News International, owned by Rupert Murdoch.
Manufacturing: The plant turns raw paper rolls, ink, fonts
and plates into copies of The Sun, The Times, The Sunday
Times and The Daily Telegraph. The site features the world’s
largest and fastest printing press, which can print a 144-page
tabloid straight in a single pass on the press at up to 86,000
copies an hour.
The CI journey: Began in 2007 with a vision to become best
newspaper manufacturer in the world. Adopted 5S and SMED
before moving onto ISO accreditations. Total productive
manufacturing implemented from 2010 with extensive
employee training programme. Site benchmarks against
Shingo and principle-driven system from 2011.
Becomes first ever UK-based Shingo Prize Award winner
in autumn 2014.
Employees: 110 (40% Newsprinters
and 60% contractor-based
business partners).
Newsprinters, Eurocentralsecret weapon in delivering the ultimate goal of becoming world number
one. McCombe was promoted to site leader in 2011 and accelerated the
focus by targeting the Shingo Prize, which advocates 10 guiding principles
including humility and mutual respect as core to achieving ops excellence.
It would be neat to end the story there: the site sails serenely on to
the Shingo Prize and everyone lives happily after. Yet, fairytales aren’t
too familiar in a factory about to make six staff – equivalent to 25% of its
print team – redundant. “Of course, there’s still scepticism,” says
McCombe. “We haven’t got 110 people who are completely
brainwashed. A lot of the guys still believe there’s a Machiavellian
reason for doing it.”
The cynics will soon convert
Yet, turn the other cheek and practice what you
preach and you’ll be amazed how soon the
cynics convert. “People want to be part of it,”
says McCombe. “I was out on the press room
this morning and a guy called Stephen
Gallacher came up to me and started telling
me about the 5S he was doing. The days of
Stephen speaking to the manager in the past
never happened. But we’ve created an
atmosphere where he wants to come and tell
us about the good things he’s doing.”
There’ll be plenty more opportunities for Stephen and his
kin to wax lyrical as the Newsprinters team board a flight for
the US to pick up the Shingo Prize later this year. “We’ll be
taking staff to Utah. It’s been their achievement – over 80% of
the assessment was with the staff – we’ve just been part of their
journey,” says Donaldson. Manager and employee in a state of Zen in
the heavens. An example to all manufacturers of the huge rewards
that come with getting your head out of the sand and into the clouds
once in a while. ■
5S faced early opposition
from the shopfloor