G&H Glenrothes celebrate national best practice award win

The Fife-based company, part of the G&H Group, and which employs around 70 highly skilled staff making precision optical components on the Eastfield Industrial Estate, was congratulated on the achievement by the Scottish Parliament through a motion proposed by Jenny Gilruth, MSP for Mid Fife and Glenrothe.

To celebrate their success, G&H invited Ms Gilruth and other VIPs, including David Thorpe of Scottish Enterprise and Pamela Stevenson of Fife Council, to tour the factory, meet staff and hear how the G&H team won the Sharing in Growth All STAR award.

As part of the global G&H advanced optical engineering and manufacturing group, G&H Glenrothes took on the target of increasing output by 23% in 2018. As this was double their previous growth rate, they recognised that they would need specialist support.

G&H Glenrothes worked with SiG, the UK government-backed competitiveness improvement program, to implement world-class manufacturing techniques, such as value stream mapping, waste elimination and continuous flow production. With SiG training in lean manufacturing, the team rose to the challenge and beat the target by delivering a 29% increase in output and a 200% improvement on year-on-year profits.

They also achieved record monthly sales and firmly demonstrated that G&H Glenrothes were determined to fulfil the company’s global vision of being the customers’ first choice for precision optics. The changes meant they were more competitive and, as a result, the company has secured £16 million in contracts and are now recruiting for additional engineers.

SiG’s experts were so impressed that at their annual awards ceremony in London they presented G&H Glenrothes with a best practice award which was, this week (Monday 16September), presented by SiG director Nick Devey at the Fife factory.

Said G&H Glenrothes general manager Mark Merigot:

“The Glenrothes team faced the monumental challenge of increasing output by 23% in a year. With huge support from Sharing in Growth’s experienced coaches, the team stepped up, took a disciplined approach to define, measure, analyse, improve and control their processes and achieved a fantastic 29% growth and, by doing so, set an important baseline upon which to improve further.”