MAS support gives green light to Derbyshire railway signals company

Collis Engineering in Alfreton which specialises in manufacturing mechanical and structural equipment used in railway signalling has increased its productivity by 40 per cent following a helping hand from MAS EM to implement lean techniques within its business.

Some of the products made by the company, now part of the Signal House Group, include signalling support structures, equipment mounting platforms and machined point fittings.

In 2003, the group underwent a management buyout headed by managing director Peter Roberts along with two of his board colleagues. Since then, the company has grown into employing some 120 people and turning over almost £7 million per year.

Peter Roberts said: “MAS EM began working with my company in autumn 2005 and started by forming an improvement team made up of members from all areas of our company and chaired by MAS. The team identified key areas for improvement which included the implementation of lean thinking and an improvement technique called ‘5S’. 

“Lean engineering is all about driving out waste from the system and improving efficiency. It gets rid of all the non-value adding activities. As an example, we saw that the inspection process slowed down our production, so we designed our manufacturing system to use standard operating procedures to remove the need for this activity and replace it with system audit.”