Harvington Management Solutions
We provide short or long term interim management solutions in the areas of: Project and Programme Management, Information Technology Management, Subject Matter Expertise (SME) in Lean Manufacturing, Planning and Scheduling.
Our consulting services in Lean Manufacturing comprise: TPS, kaizen, inventory management, logistics management, single piece flow, value stream mapping, six sigma principles, 5S, root cause analysis, Kanban, failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA), statistical process control (SPC) and quality cost delivery and service (QCDS) boards.
Able to deliver solutions based on the winning combination of technology and lean principles.
Technology delivers transformational value when Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) implements Lean principles and is complemented by Manufacturing Execution Software (MES) that also adopts Lean principles. Manufacturers can minimize wastage and address situations such as mura (uneven operations), muda (non value-added activities, or waste) through MES and Lean concepts.
Our industry expertise is diverse and we have provided solutions to companies in the following sectors:
We co-organise the international XML London conference, a highly successful event focused around XML and Linked Data technologies such as XSLT, XQuery, SPARQL, XForms and the Semantic web. We organise and run an international conference Lean Six Sigma London at the same venue (UCL, London.)
A highly skilled Project and Programme Director with wide ranging experience leading and managing a diverse range of projects across a wide range of sectors, industries and organisations.
Types of Projects delivered:
Certified to: Prince 2 Practitioner, IPMA Level C (APM) and ITIL v3 Foundation.
Dr Foster became one of the earliest pioneers in Lean, having been trained in the Toyota Production System, Kaizen and 5S by members of the Toyota Club at Nippon Light Metals in Japan, at Nagoya, Kambara and Funabashi during 1987-1988.
As a result, Dr. Foster has been a Lean practitioner for 30 years and has led major Lean transformation projects and programmes across a range of manufacturing industry and services.
Initially in the UK during 1988 he assisted Luxfer UK, Nottingham to reduce their lead time of gas cylinder manufacturing from 26 to 11 days whilst halving inventory and improving quality.
Some major achievements include:
Managed the company-wide Lean programme for British Alcan Aluminium which released £100 million of cash from inventory reduction in one year alone and inventory turnover to increase from 4.1 in 1988 to 7.1 times by 1995.
Delivering a solution based on the winning combination of technology (MES) and Lean principles at McDougalls Foods, one of the UK's leading maker of baking flour, to increase inventory turnover from 13 to 50+ and remove all external warehouse inventory, whilst maintaining 99.9% on-time delivery. See the McDougalls' Case Study
Using Lean Six Sigma, he has helped HWFRS (Hereford and Worcester Fire Rescue Logistics) to double their ESSU (effective shelf space utilisation) in fleet stores from 32% to 67% with improved quality, cost, service and housekeeping.
Dr. Foster has spoken at many conferences and was a Keynote Speaker at the 2nd International Conference on Production Planning and Control in the Metals Industry "Progress towards world class manufacturing performance" organised by the Institute of Materials.
He recently presented a paper at the Fourth International Conference on Lean Six Sigma, Glasgow March 2012. Theme: "Transforming Business Results through Process Excellence and Lean Six Sigma."
With a PhD in Operational Research, able to deliver solutions based on the winning combination of technology and lean principles.
Extensive client facing experience at all levels within an organisation up to and including board level.