October 25th, 2023
In our professional and personal lives, we often encounter challenges and obstacles that require creative solutions. We’d like to introduce you to a powerful problem-solving framework known as the 3C method: Concern, Cause, Countermeasure. Whether you’re a seasoned professional or someone eager to enhance your problem-solving toolkit, this method has something valuable to offer. What […]
July 11th, 2023
When it comes to applying continuous improvement methodologies to operational improvement programs or business improvement projects generally there isn’t a ‘one size fits all’. However, over the many years that Bourton Group has been helping to improve businesses, we have found the PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) approach to be highly effective. This is not […]
February 28th, 2022
Bourton Group has been helping to make businesses better for over five decades, and during this time, we’ve seen many trends come and go. However, irrespective of the business sector and the general direction of change, the following three objectives have continuously remained high on most business performance improvement agendas: We want real, tangible business […]
October 19th, 2021
Whilst reading a great article in Forbes during a recent flight to Portugal, The Pandemic has changed Business Structures: There’s No Going Back. I was struck by the comment from Brian Chesky, founder, and CEO of Airbnb, who rightly says, “travel will never go back to what it was before the pandemic.” The article also […]
September 6th, 2021
Developing Management Capability in Others Much attention is paid to the difference between leading and managing, and the concept of ‘leadership’, quite rightly, gets considerable airtime in the learning and development arena. Never before has demonstrating the skills associated with capturing and engaging the commitment of people been more expected or more challenging. And, whilst […]
February 25th, 2021
Bourton Group LLP reaffirms its commitment to the Management Consultancies Association Consulting Excellence principles. The Consulting Excellence is a groundbreaking scheme for some of the UK’s leading management consulting firms and marks a step-change for the industry. As a founding member of the MCA and an operation management consultancy, we are committed to upholding the highest standards […]
February 24th, 2021
Bourton is listed in the Financial Times league table of the UK’s Leading Management Consultants 2021. For the third consecutive year, Bourton Group received a significant number of recommendations from peers and clients and can be classed as highly “recommended” within the consulting industry, and particularly within the Construction & Infrastructure sector. Read the full report […]
February 2nd, 2021
The reason 5S is different is that, unlike just about every other Lean technique, it is not based on processes, but instead on the work environment. If you’re not careful when training, this can make it seem overly simplistic when in reality a detailed appreciation of each of the 5 S’s is essential if they’re to be […]
November 16th, 2020
The individuals in an empowered team (also known as a ‘self-directed’ or ‘self-managed’) are not too different from that of the average traditional team. With an empowered team knowledge, experience and motivation are fully utilised, as they are given more freedom over the way they work. It is not the team members or team roles […]
July 7th, 2020
How businesses leverage their Networked Organisation to exploit the ‘hidden’ margin benefits in the value-chain and stimulate cashflows For many organisations the pandemic has exposed a lack of resilience in their business. Businesses are seeking ‘Competitive Survival’ in a rapidly changing environment, and the capability to manage disruption and uncertainty to mitigate risks and emerge […]
May 29th, 2020
2019 a great year for Bourton Group LLP 2019 started with The Financial Times naming us as one of the Leading UK Consultancy Firms for the 2nd year running. Then not long after, Bourton Group had further reason to celebrate having scooped the 2019 MCA Award for Performance Improvement in the Private Sector. Our 2019 […]
May 7th, 2020
Being a high-performance leader may come more naturally to some than others. However, the skills required can also be learned, developed, and continuously improved. Here are our observations on the leadership skills that most often crop up in our coaching work with leaders and managers. The three skill areas that leaders can lever to bring […]
April 27th, 2020
Bourton Group LLP is delighted to announce that Sharon Banks has joined its consulting team as an Associate Senior Consultant. Sharon is a Lean expert with extensive experience of working in Government agencies at a senior level for many years. During her career, Sharon has led large
April 15th, 2020
When you’re first introduced to Lean, one of the things that can be slightly confusing is the many ways in which ‘time’ is mentioned. We all understand that time elapses and that any given moment is a specific time, but suddenly in Lean we hear phrases like: Cycle Time Lead Time Work Content Time Elapsed […]
February 27th, 2020
I’ve recently been working with an organisation that has several key members of staff retiring from the business over the next few years. Realising the risk to the business from a shortfall of valuable knowledge and experience needed for successful running of day to day operations; they have identified a need to plan for dealing […]
February 11th, 2020
Measuring the Return on Investment of Continuous Improvement (CI) Much is written and published about when, where and how to implement Continuous Improvement (CI), less is said about why. To some extent, it could be that the reason why seems obvious – if you have a problem, the reason you use CI techniques is that […]
January 21st, 2020
The constant challenge for business leaders is to understand that there may be a better way to carry out business activity than the one that has been successful for the last 30 years and is now ingrained into the values and beliefs of their organisation. Lean Thinking was developed for the manufacturing sector during the […]
January 9th, 2020
It’s important to recognise the need for a proper understanding of the real situation before starting to improve things. In Six Sigma a lot of emphasis is put on DMAIC – Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, Control – as the correct method for structuring improvement projects. In fact, although the terminology stems from Six Sigma theory, […]
November 21st, 2019
When introducing myself at the start of a training course and explaining my current role, I tend to say my time splits into around 30% training or coaching and 70% leading projects. Shamefully for someone who regularly delivers whole modules on the importance of data integrity, I’ve never actually checked if that’s true, but it […]
October 9th, 2019
Evolution or Revolution. Shaking it up. This year’s LCI-UK summit is opened by Rob Walley, Senior Partner here at Bourton Group LLP, and Board Director with the Lean Construction Institute UK. The 2019 Lean Construction Summit “Lean Construction: Evolution or Revolution? Shaking it up” aims to address the fundamental questions facing the Construction Industry, from […]
October 2nd, 2019
Recently I assisted with a Robust Design for Analysts training course run by Bourton Group at one of the UK’s leading manufacturing companies. It was a useful reminder of Process Improvement’s vast scale of complexity. I spend most of my working life training, coaching and leading projects at companies which have massive amounts to gain […]
September 10th, 2019
The devil in the detail: why transformation efforts fail Having a great vision and plan is important, but the fact remains most transformation efforts will fail at the execution stage! The most common reason for this is that leaders often underestimate the magnitude of change. Change leaders can misjudge the importance of engaging the entire […]
August 14th, 2019
How Stakeholder Analysis can help you to understand the views of stakeholders with respect to change. So what is it? Stakeholder Analysis provides a way for the project team to predict the views of the stakeholders with respect to the change. A stakeholder is anyone who: Owns the process/es Controls critical resources within the processes […]
August 1st, 2019
All Lean practitioners know that success with improvement projects will only come if they have the buy-in of the people involved. When you make changes to processes, if the people involved do not understand why those changes are happening, disagree with the need for the change, or believe the wrong changes are being made, then […]
March 5th, 2019
What’s Lean got to do with me? Having worked with many companies from different industries it’s not unusual for me to be challenged by clients about how applicable Lean is to them. In fact, it’s a common misconception that Lean has no place in low-volume environments and that it’s only meant for longer, highly repetitive […]
February 21st, 2019
Is Six Sigma a Pre-requisite to Design for Six Sigma? No! It’s a common misconception though. Design for Six Sigma (DfSS) is perceived to be more complex than Six Sigma and often ‘too hard’. Before we address this, just what is DfSS? DfSS is a methodology that revolves around the ability to be able to […]
February 13th, 2019
Bourton Group LLP amongst UK consultancies rated most highly by clients and peers? For the second year running, The Financial Times has named Bourton Group LLP as one of the leading UK consultancy firms. We have been recognised for our sectorial experience in the Construction and Infrastructure space and for the benefits and outcomes that our work has […]
August 1st, 2018
The Lean Six Sigma Belt Structure Mike Horton, Senior Consultant Eleven years ago, while working for an American chemicals corporation which was beginning to introduce Lean globally, I got my first 100% improvement focussed job, and the role was officially called Tool Facilitator. Two years later, when it was announced the role names were all […]
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