Transforming the Operations of a Police Service’s New Maintenance Facility

A large UK police service had built a new state-of-the-art facility to maintain police vehicles and wanted to run it with Operational Excellence from day one. However, they lacked the internal capabilities to implement the culture or upskill managers and technicians.

Reinvigoration provided a six-month deployment of Operational Excellence ways of working that allowed the police service to sustain this culture and achieve new levels of operational performance.

The Challenge

A large UK police service struggled with the volume of repair work within their police vehicle repair facility. They designed and built a new state-of-the-art facility for the maintenance of police vehicles and desired to open this with Operational Excellence ways of working from day one. However, they did not have the internal capabilities to implement the culture, or the ability to upskill managers and technicians in the right culture and tools or techniques.

The Solution

Reinvigoration had previously built strong ties with the organisation with a proven track record of success in this requirement. They approached us, and we were able to spend the six months with the workshop team to coach them through a significant transformation.

How Reinvigoration helped:

• Implemented ergonomics, visual management, 5S, and other techniques into the physical environment whilst teaching all staff effective measures and huddles.
• Rolled out structured problem solving and improved workshop flow to help the staff to be empowered to implement continuous improvements every day whilst developing process disciplines.

The Outcomes

Reinvigoration helped the police service to:

• Successfully transfer the capability of Operational Excellence ways of working to the site, which is now fully self-sufficient in the culture and practices necessary for long-term success.
• Encourage every team to perform huddles regularly and work together to apply structured problem-solving.
• Help the site identify cost improvements, reducing budget spend by £1 million per annum using alternative parts and reducing consumables.
• Achieve a massive success in the steady increase in throughput from 220 vehicles per month to a steady 500 through the reduction in waiting time for end customers.

The Conclusion

Reinvigoration was able to help the UK police service maximise the capabilities of their new facility within six months and see unprecedented levels of operational performance. The organisation saw a reduced budget spend of £1 million a year, and is now able to autonomously run with Operational Excellence and see long-term success.