Gooch & Housego were founded in Somerset in 1948. The business originally focused on scientific optical components but expanded their range massively over the years through the acquisition of other plants, originally all in the UK but eventually worldwide. Gooch & Housego’s Torquay-based facility came under the G&H branch in 2007, having been founded in 1985. This facility specialises in designing, engineering, and manufacturing photonic solutions and fibre optic components and serves clients in industries including aerospace and defence. They came to SiG to help accelerate growth which wasn’t reaching expectations, and to transform the culture of the business to improve the welfare and motivations of their staff.
The challenge
Although benefitting from being part of the successful G&H group, who operate globally, and serving customers in a range of industries, the Torquay facility were struggling to grow as they had envisioned. To be competitive in a market sector where photonics was relatively new, new efficiencies needed to be found in the manufacturing and planning operations to enable growth. They brought SiG in to help them remove the shackles and accelerate growth, while fostering in a new culture to ensure staff were motivated and fully on board with the new strategy.
The plant area was also inefficient, in need of refurbishment and lacking key certifications, locking G&H Torquay out of many potential markets. SiG would have to assist in creating a new business-wide strategy for growth and restructure for the organisation to achieve these objectives.
The Solution
Job descriptions, competencies and objectives were developed after consultations with all staff, to help create a vision of growth that was matched in the strategic plan for the business. Leadership underwent training to ensure they could inspire change in their staff. Continuous improvement became a key factor and was completely integrated into the daily running of the business, including a new management control and reporting system.
SiG created a new lean lighthouse area on a technically challenging process, then copied the best practices from that process across the entire business to bring standards up across the entire operation. This would in turn reduce lead times. A plan to achieve ISO 9001 was conceived, to verify the quality of the plant and go along the AS9100 certification already achieved by the plant.
A proposal to refurbish and modernise the plant was put into place, which would allow growth and improved processes across the business, as well as a new level of flexibility to respond to customers as needed.
The Results
G&H Torquay saw exceptional results from participating in the Sharing in Growth program. Turnover increased from £17.5M to £20M, and turnover was estimated to double to £30M in just a few years. As well as increasing turnover, G&H Torquay saw a complete business transformation.
ISO 9001 certification was achieved, certifying quality output. Lead times were cut from 24 weeks to just 6 weeks, positioning the plant as a highly competitive supplier. OTD was improved from 50% to 85%, in spite of the much shorter lead times, highlighting the transformation that was seen throughout the business.
Sharing in Growth helped oversee an expansion and refurbishment to the plant, resulting in a much larger, fully open-plan production area which provides much greater flexibility for staff and customers. Line output yield has been increased to over 90%, reducing waste and improving profitability.
Over 30 jobs were created, bringing in new staff to meet the higher demands thanks to the new business helped secured by Sharing in Growth. These staff were embedded in a new business culture which now sees highly enthusiastic and motivated staff who report much higher job satisfaction. SiG were delighted to award G&H Torquay the Sharing in Growth Integrity award, a reflection of the great dedication and success of the entire business in implementing the new strategy.
“The SiG diagnostic offered us a unique opportunity to self-review strengths and weaknesses in our business and use the available training structure ourselves for long term growth and optimal performance. Our objective is to make ‘SiG our day job’ and make our entire workforce part of the project, delivering our growth objectives with a happy, motivated workforce.“
GRAHAM CATLEY
GENERAL MANAGER
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