In January 2010 a team was put together in anticipation of the production of CEWE products transferring from Nyköping (Sweden) to Bristol.
I would be looking after the new team, the focus would be on two products, Panel Instruments and Transducers. James Lloyd, Mark Naish, Elaine Stainer and Jared Leitch were allocated to work on Panel Instruments, while Carol Russell, Chris Wallis and Yacine Amimer would be focusing on Transducers. The first stage of the process was to ensure that the team had appropriate training on the new products. The Transducer team were the first to visit Sweden, they started their training on site at CEWE in January 2010. The Panel Instruments team made their way overseas in February.
The next stage was to find space on the busy shop floor to house the new production activity. The location for manufacturing the new product ranges was agreed, prior to the arrival of the testing and production kit from Sweden in April 2010. Once on site there was opportunity for a little more training to ensure everyone was ready for the launch. Some production started in Bristol in May 2010, some continued in Nyköping. I am pleased to report that full production was under way after just one month.
Ove Engdahl of CEWE who had provided a lot of the training in Sweden kindly came to Bristol in July, and September of 2010 to provide more support as production increased. There was also the need to increase the footprint for producing the CEWE range of products on the shop floor with the addition of a dedicated despatch area.
Once in full swing with the original products further training was provided to enable the team to pick up a wider range of panel meters.
It was never going to be an easy task to move production from a different site, but everyone involved directly within the teams and those from other departments that provided support worked incredibly hard to ensure that the transfer was a huge success. Not only did we work across the departments but we worked across geographies to make this project succeed.
Working together made it easier to achieve a very difficult goal. Paul works at Secure Controls in Bristol. He is a leading hand and coordinates the CEWE production.