Every area has its own individual problems. Unless the team considers the whole process, correctly prioritising issues and driving the most important solutions through, it's almost impossible to make real change happen quickly. In addition, everyone at Medica is extremely engaged with quality, and therefore rightly cautious when new concepts are introduced.

Jenny was a great mentor; she'd been here for a relatively short amount of time, but understood the processes and how to help move us forward. Keith Greasley, General Manager

In the first week we showed a credible plan to deliver a 35% increase in efficiency across the key operations and a 15% loss in raw materials not visible in the existing management reporting systems.

One of the hardest parts of working in a small improvement team is the communication of the team's brilliant ideas to the shop floor. To help everyone in the company understand the importance of Growth Through Excellence, new KPI packs were created.

The key aspect is that these KPI's were designed for the shop floor – the packs are used by supervisors to go through each line's performance on a daily basis with each individual operator. It didn't take long for the operators to start asking for their daily reviews because they work as a great forum for operators to feedback ideas to the team. Additionally, when the core GTE teams suggested ideas, the operators were much happier to help out because they could instantly see the impact of their efforts.

There was a bit of a dip, I don't know if people were flagging or tired with it as the projects were quite intense. Jenny got everyone in and revitalised them, by providing data, facts and words of encouragement, which seemed to give everyone renewed vigour. Mark Wilson, Shift Manager

You can come up with the best ideas in the world and talk about it for hours and hours but at the end of the day it is the operators on the shop floor who actually deliver the results. That's why Chartwell don't just write reports then leave – we help communicate the vision, train the staff, understand the problems then overcome the barriers. And before long, it's not just technical changes to the process that you start to see: it's a change in mindset from everyone from top level managers to shop floor assistants.