Clinic & project overview

Clinics presently in operation (open to all CeeD member companies)

If you'd be interested in collaborating with other companies on these topics, please let us know via the contact CeeD form.

Property
This area of CeeD activity is headed up by our Chairman, Ian Dodd. Ian has 'more than a few' years of experience in dealing with commercial property matters, having managed the National Australia Bank Group's estate and as Property Services Director for Alfred McAlpine Business Services. If you have property related issues, Ian should be your first port of call for some invaluable help and guidance. Topics covered to date include new builds, improve or move decision criteria, rent reviews, advice on contract negotiations, factory layout, FM outsourcing etc. Ian cannot replace your professional adviser, but he can save you a considerable amount of time, hassle and money by sharing his knowledge and experience with you, helping steer you through the property maze.

Key Performance Indicators - From Measurement to Management
This Clinic details the journey from Performance Measurement to Performance Management by examining what companies are currently measuring today and building up a Balanced Scorecard type approach; a recognised methodology which includes four key areas: Financial, Process, People & Customer. It will look at people KPIs and align these to the overall 'weighting' this has had on the business.

Leadership
Sir John Harvey-Jones said at the end of his career that business needed more leadership than management and the topic of Leadership keeps cropping up around the CeeD group, albeit in a variety of guises. "How do I squeeze the last 5%?", "how do I get my guys to move out of their comfort zones and be more pro-active?"," what do I need to do to get my team more involved?" Let's bang heads together and figure it out.

Lean Manufacturing
Lean manufacturing essentially allows your business to achieve more with less resource, through the continuous elimination of waste. It aims to compress time. Typically, if you quarter your lead-time, you will double productivity and take 20% off your costs – or 0.25 : 2 : 20. For those companies interested in 'leaning' their enterprise, this Clinic is looking at how member companies currently approach the topic and has been on several site visits to look at lean in practice. Moving forward, it is hoped that we can engage on an informal lean learning programme in a 'learn by doing' support environment.

Environment
Cost reduction, tax avoidance, improved green credentials, ISO compliance... there are many reasons why companies are actively engaged with environmental issues. Whatever the rationale, it's a huge subject and getting bigger all the time. This Clinic brings together member companies to discuss their approach and share their knowledge on all matters environmental, be they energy, water, waste or emissions. One of our members with F/T environment professionals has even delivered a workshop to others looking to get started on the journey.

Marketing
CeeD's core objective is to help companies with an operational bias to become more successful. Marketing has a significant role to play in this success, yet many (smaller) companies don't have access to the strategic marketing experience necessary to develop new products and/or new markets, nationally and internationally. There are 2 Chartered Marketers within the CeeD office... maybe we can help our members to move towards the next stage of growth?

Inter Company Training & Modern Apprenticeship Passport
Time and again we've heard of companies struggling to find qualified, experienced staff from an engineering / technical background. Very often, the ideal candidate is tempted away from another company in the area, with the consequence that the cost of labour goes up for everyone. Our collective challenge is to encourage more young people into technical careers by promoting engineering as a discipline that needn't mean greasy overalls and oil under the fingernails – rather as a rewarding, fulfilling career which offers many potential development paths. CeeD's Modern Apprenticeship Passport aspires to this lofty ambition and has more than thirty young people taking part in the scheme currently. Working with academia, training partners and member companies, we've created a model which allows companies which perhaps don't have the necessary in-house expertise in some required disciplines to send their apprentices to other members companies which do, in order to complete the apprentice training. This concept is being extended to allow all staff from member companies to be trained by other member companies in specific areas where recognised training 'gaps' exist, saving £thousands in the process.

Enhancing Engineering Education
"Scottish engineering graduates are among the best in the world... but it takes them a couple of years after University to realise what it's all about and start delivering real value." Paraphrasing of course but does this sound familiar? The objective of this Clinic is to examine ways in which this circa 2 year period can be reduced dramatically so value is delivered from day 1. Are there disconnects between what industry needs in the 21st century and what the Universities are producing? How can industry provide relevant work-based learning as part of a formal degree programme? How can academia track this and award appropriate degree credits? How can we take undergraduates out of casual student work in bars and restaurants and provide them with flexible employment in industry which can add to their skills, knowledge and employability? Only through industry and academic collaboration can these questions be resolved.

Planned Maintenance
Plant downtime is a pain - even worse when it's unscheduled! Regular maintenance, scheduled overhauls and remedial work all contribute to ensuring plant runs efficiently, effectively and profitably at all times. This Clinic examines how member companies approach their planned maintenance activities through site visits and sharing of best practice in this area.

Innovation
Innovation means different things to different people. Some see it as improvements to existing processes, while others see it as a completely new approach to solving a particular problem. In discussion with Rob Dekkers of UWS and George Boag of Targeting Innovation, a range of tools have been developed to enable businesses to evaluate the use of innovation in their business.

Health And Safety
A Bubble Group meeting on the Corporate Manslaughter Act earlier this year revealed what high penalties now exist for breaches of health & safety legislation - could your business even survive a fine of up to 15% of its annual turnover? Like so many areas, changes in legislation mean someone in the organisation must take the responsibility for keeping on top of this issue and ensuring compliance – but only in the larger companies is that 'someone' a dedicated resource. For the rest of us, it's a question of changing hats. If your personnel are exposed to potential danger while working on or off-site, what are the obvious (and not so obvious) things you need to do and consider to ensure compliance? What if a journalist 'doorsteps' one of your team following an accident - how can the PR ramifications be managed? And what does best practice in this area look like?

Facilities Management
A huge subject which touches on many of the existing and proposed Clinics, facilities managers have extensive responsibilities for providing, maintaining and developing a whole host of services. These range from property strategy, space management and communications infrastructure to building maintenance, utilities, administration and contract management. Rather than ploughing a lone furrow, do you think it might prove beneficial to pool the knowledge and experience of the Facilities Managers in the area to help each other? We do.

Food and Drink
Another name which might describe the activities of Food and Drink companies is 'process engineering'. There are a number of large and smaller companies within the CeeD community operating in (or supplying to) this business sector. We suspect there could be benefit to all in coming together in a Clinic to share operational knowledge and experience.

Projects

• the identification of a new process for the repair of scratched LCD screens
• research into the commercial potential of what is currently a waste product going to landfill