Manufacturing Skills Queensland

Brisbane-based Varley Specialised Vehicles (VSV) has built a solid relationship with QMI Solutions that has paid dividends not only in improved production methods but in higher standards of internal leadership and staff achievement.

The MSQ leadership program included training in:

leading not managing
building effective work teams
knowing, sharing and implementing VSV’s vision and mission
being an effective role model
talking to and listening to people
the listening/talking 70:30 rule: 70% listening, 30% talking
building relationships with internal and external stakeholders
recognising a job well done
being open and honest
allowing failure
finding out what makes people tick
providing the right tools for team members to work effectively
acknowledging team members
developing a culture of coaching
providing and receiving open, effective feedback

VSV, part of the Varley Group of Companies, operates from facilities in suburban Virginia where it designs and manufactures customised fleet or one-off vehicles for police, fire and ambulance services, defence forces, health authorities and commercial clients.

Previous work undertaken by QMI Solutions with VSV involved identifying and implementing improvements in processes and production.

In 2006, VSV achieved production efficiencies at its 5,000sqm facility after completing a Manufacturing Microscope benchmarking assessment and implementing the 5S system for improving access to manufacturing materials and tools.

The 5S concept involves logical, but not always obvious, changes in behaviour on the shop floor —sorting equipment, setting it in order, shining or properly maintaining it, standardising and sustaining the approach.

In late 2007, after winning contracts to supply 100 new vehicles to the Queensland Ambulance Service and refurbish 174 Brisbane City Council buses, VSV again sought QMI’s expertise to help it achieve production cycle times set by the clients.

A new ambulance needed to roll out of the factory every three working days and a bus refurbishment needed to be finished every four working days.

By early 2008, VSV and QMI Solutions had designed and implemented the necessary changes to production flows and factory-floor layouts to accommodate the work.

Although the positive outcomes of QMI Solutions’ work with VSV had not touched on people skills, the firm’s management realised there would be additional benefits in a series of leadership training workshops the following year.

Manufacturing Skills Queensland (MSQ), a division of QMI Solutions, was engaged to deliver the training to 20 VSV staff. Participants included those from senior management ranks, leading hands, team leaders and administrative staff.

The training was planned over four sessions, each held a fortnight apart, with 10 staff in each workshop to avoid having 20 personnel away from work concurrently.

Brisbane-based Varley Specialised Vehicles (VSV) designs and manufactures customised vehicles for ambulance services, metropolitan and rural fire brigades, defence forces, police, health services and other private and public sector clients. It can produce one-off custom vehicles or scale up to large production runs. VSV is a subsidiary of the Newcastle-based Varley Group, which includes specialised engineering divisions serving Australian and overseas clients, including defence and aerospace industries, shipping companies, railways and power stations.

MSQ consultant John Colegate, who delivered the program, said the aim was to build a rapport among staff and relationships between people that led to trust and teamwork.

He said delivering training in installments had a layering effect so, after the first session, each subsequent session built on the results of the previous one. "We would end each session with a list of ideas for people to implement at work over the following two weeks," Colegate said.

"When they came back for the next session we asked each of them to tell us what they had done differently after the previous session, what sort of reaction they received from other staff and what feedback they were given.

"Then, after completing another session, they were again asked to practise over the following two weeks what they had learned."

Colegate said the aim of the approach was to "slowly but surely create the good habits we want them to have. At the same time, it allows others to slowly adjust to changes in the way people behave".

VSV production supervisor for specialised vehicles, Lee Simkiss, said he gained a tremendous amount from the leadership training. For him, the greatest value was the focus on communication. "My communications skills were ‘old school’, " said Simkiss, who began his working life in the UK as an apprentice coach builder.

"In the UK there was always a ‘secret squirrel’ attitude. You were told something and were not supposed to pass it on. You had a job and did it, and that was it."

But the MSQ training’s emphasis on the benefits of open, effective communication was an entirely new approach. "It opened my eyes to different ways of doing things," Simkiss said. "Instead of a ‘them-and-us’ attitude, it put everyone on an even keel."

He said the training also showed the benefits of listening to others, considering their ideas and allowing them to implement them, even if they didn’t work out in the end.

"It showed the value of allowing people to feel free to make decisions without any bad feelings, encouraging people to deliver and have a go themselves and delegating to give people ownership."

Simkiss said another positive aspect of the training was the emphasis on team building. Exercises in the workshops were supplemented with practical advice "that could be pushed out into the shop floor itself".

Simkiss is responsible for up to 40 staff: coach builders, sheet-metal workers, welders and fabricators.

He said shop floor implementation of lessons learned at the training workshops met some initial resistance. Simkiss put that down to people being "wary of change and anything new".

"But things did improve as people better understood what was happening, and realised the company was interested in what they were doing and trying to help them," he said.

Productivity improved as information flow to staff had improved. "It’s about talking to them and asking what we can do to make it easier for them to do what they have to do," he said.

MSQ consultant John Colegate with Varley Specialised Vehicles’ general manager Anthony Dore, who undertook the leadership workshops

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