The World Class Manufacturing Association presented Royal Mail with three bronze awards for its achievements in improving performance at its Cardiff, Gatwick and Northern Ireland mail centres at a ceremony in London on Friday 29 October.
The improvements at the mail centres forms the foundation of Royal Mail’s World Class Mail programme to drive up standards to improve the working environment and quality of service for customers.
According to Royal Mail, the World Class Mail programme, now rolled out to a further 14 centres across the UK, is a comprehensive system of continuous improvement, made up of 10 "pillars" ranging from safety to people development. It actively engages frontline staff, training and encouraging them to look at how improvements can be made in each individual step of the many processes that take place. Often simple changes can have a dramatic effect on productivity and, when multiplied across the business, can lead to significant savings.
The programme underpins Royal Mail’s commitment to transform the business into a modern postal operator and is now rolling out across all its operations over the next two years.
Mark Higson, Managing Director of Royal Mail, said: "Royal Mail is committed to achieving world-class levels of performance across our operations with our people fully involved as we progress the transformation and modernisation of the company.
"Through our World Class Mail programme, Royal Mail has made significant improvements in safety, quality of service and efficiency in our pilot units. Every single person whose enthusiasm and commitment has played a part in making the programme a success should be proud of their efforts and the awards we have received."
Tim Jones, Head of World Class Mail at Royal Mail, said: "World Class Mail gives everyone an opportunity to be actively involved in our transformation on the operational floor - not in the office.
"Those who are introducing the World Class mail techniques have found it exciting and have relished the chance to improve safety, quality and their working environment while also providing an improved service to our customers."
At Gatwick Mail Centre, employees improved productivity by identifying that dust fibres from envelopes were the cause for frequent stoppages of the mail sorting equipment. From a machine stopping every 1,400 letters, it can now run for several shifts without any problems.
Machine operator Marcelo Suarez-Mori said: "We cleaned every part of the machine to get it back to a ‘factory-fresh’ condition and organised a cleaning rota among the shifts and this has improved productivity by reducing the number of stoppages."
He added: "I have found it extremely satisfying to have been able to make practical suggestions that have helped improve the performance of Gatwick Mail Centre."
The World Class Manufacturing Association encourages organisations across the world to strive for operational excellence and world-class performance.
Its principles are based on a comprehensive system of continuous improvement developed by Dr Hajime Yamashina, Professor Emeritus Kyoto University, and which encourages people at all levels of an organisation to share ideas.
