Why it’s ‘People to People’ rather than ‘Business to Businesses’ at Continua

At Continua We coined the phrase ‘People to People’ to describe the way we do business. To us it is about the emphasis we put on building strong, respectful and professional relationships with our clients. It’s about being honest and being responsive. It’s about understanding your vision and working with you to help achieve your goals.

“Continua have been providing us with ‘print to post’ machine servicing for over three years. The engineers turn up when they say they will, are always polite and seem to really care about solving our printer problems. What our print rooms like most is that as a matter of course they don’t leave a job untested.”

Business to business versus ‘people first’

Whatever size of business we’re working with, we work in close partnership with individuals, within the business. We take the time to listen to their business needs and priorities and adjust our contracts and working procedures so they work best for them.

We can be ‘people to people’ because:

We trust our engineers to do the right thing  

We respect all of the people who work for us – we listen to their ideas and suggestions to help make our business better.

And because we are a ‘people to people’ business:

We look to continuously improve what we do and it is our people that drive this

Our people use their understanding of your business to help ensure you are primed and ready for production when YOU need it

We put an emphasis on honest, regular communications and reviews

We work with your people to help ensure the production line (from print to post) is as efficient and effective as possible.

We operate lean business practices. So in addition to being a people to people business we have rigorous methods and procedures in place to ensure we help you to:

Minimise waste,

Ensure your production capability is reliable and consistent,

Deliver an end product to your customer that is of the highest quality.

To find out more about LEAN principals visit www.lean-manufacturing-junction.com/.

If you want to find out more about how Continua do business visit http://continua.ltd.uk/how_we_work.php

If you would like to find out more about Continua’s People to People attitude to business call Chris Jefferies on 01582 578999

Instilling a culture of responsibility

Our engineers really do go the extra mile. But everyone says that. What does it actually mean in real life? We talk to our very own Chris Jeffries about how Continua’s ‘can-do’ attitude sits at the heart of everything we do, forming the bedrock on which our company culture sits.

First, what’s your background?

“I started my career in customer service with Kern. Since becoming National Operations Manager at Continua I’ve worked closely with our clients and the management team to develop our innovative ‘Lean Service’, designed to deliver genuine value with cost benefits that would be impossible to achieve through traditional ‘break and fix’ maintenance contracts.”

How do Continua create a culture of responsibility?

“For a start, our people integrate more than other service companies. In practical terms that means we act as more than just another service provider. Our Service Level Agreements and back to back agreements formalise what we do for you, when, how and to what standard. Armed with that knowledge, our engineers are free to play an integral part of your production line’s health and wellbeing.

We do much more than just pop in now and again to mend things when they go wrong. Our in-depth, detailed knowledge means we can really contribute ideas and improvements & really fit in as part of your team.”

Tell us about Continua’s engineers

“We have great engineers on our books, with a broad mix of experience across the whole manufacturing marketplace. You’ll experience nothing but the best, a bunch of guys who have a genuine can-do attitude, take pride in their work, are happy to stay late if needs be and really do care about making things work as well as they possibly can.

We instil an ethos of responsibility too. We know that when you give the best people free reign, they do much more than it says on the tin. Our engineers know the buck stops with them. It’s a huge positive motivator! And it’s a matter of pride. They do what’s right because it’s the right thing to do. No clock watchers, no big business restrictions, just people you can trust under any and every circumstance.”

How do you encourage openness and transparency?

“Unlike some, we don’t try to hide if something goes wrong. We’ll get to the root cause of the problem, by hook or by crook, and sort it out as fast as we can. It’s all about taking a long term view. We trust our engineers to do the right thing… and they do.

A people-centric approach is also essential if you want to be ‘lean’ in a business sense. Treating our customers from a traditional B2B perspective we feel is old fashioned and does not drive continual improvement. That’s why we believe in a people-centric approach works beautifully in supporting our lean objectives to improve your business.”

What do you mean by ‘cordial long term relationships’?

“Breaking down the traditional barriers between clients, suppliers and our engineers means we enjoy a true transparent partnership-style relationships with our customers. We know every business is different and we act accordingly. We don’t do ‘one size fits all’, which means we genuinely understand the implications of what we’re doing and how they affect a production line in its entirety.”

Tell us about working ‘people to people’

“Our hierarchy is refreshingly different. We are a ‘people to people’ business, not ‘business to business‘. Which means our brand and our reputation are built on the the individuals working for and with us. It enables us to be much more open and transparent than our competitors.

Dialogue is one of our most important tools of the trade. Powerful, long term, human-to-human connections and strong partnerships based on trust and affection smooth the path. And value and quality mean more to us than price. Which might sound odd, but the commercial benefits are crystal clear for everyone involved.”

How have things changed from the old days of print?

“Most services like ours stem from the old litho print days, where a job was a job. But print has changed. It’s extremely machine centric. Sadly fresh thinking is as rare as hens’ teeth, which is why our offering is so unusual.”

As you can see, we don’t sell a service. We sell a partnership. If that’s something you like the sound of, we should talk. We’ll be delighted to discuss your needs – feel free to get in touch for an informed, informal chat about our contracted and non-contracted services.

Who is John Krafcik?

John Krafcik, the man who is credited for coining the phrase ‘Lean Manufacturing’ is currently the chief Executive of Hyundai Motor America. He joined Hyundai (a Korean family owned and run car company)  in 2004 and has seen Hyundai’s (US)  market share increase by over 50% and now controlling over 5 percent of the US market. In the UK Hyundai has a 3.5% market share.

Krafcik is a Stanford University Mechanical engineering graduate and on leaving university his first job was selling solar water heaters before going on to join Xerox. His first move into the automotive industry came when he joined a joint venture between Toyota and General Motors (Mew United Motor Manufacturing) building small cars for both companies. As part of this role he was able to travel to the Toyota City in Japan where he saw for the manufacturing methods employed by the Japanese. With these insights his next step was to get a masters degree in management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). While there he saw a job posted on a bulletin board working as a researcher for James Womack, a respected leader in ‘auto plant productivity’ – he got the post and was able to tour car plants worldwide researching production methods.

It was in 1988 that Krafcik first used the phrase ‘Lean Manufacturing’ in his article ‘Triumph of the Lean Production system’ in the Sloan Management Review.

He used the term lean ‘because it uses less of everything compared to mass production – half the human effort in the factory, half the manufacturing space, half the investment in tools, half the engineering hours to develop a new product in half to the time’

The other thing that sets lean apart from mass production is the emphasis on continually reducing costs, and continually making the end product better with fewer defects and more consistency.

To read more about the differences between mass production and lean production read The Machine that Changed the World: The story of Lean production – the book co-authored by Jim Womack and that Krafcik was researching when he used for the first time the phrase Lean Manufacturing.

Continua strives to continually improve its own services and to help our clients work towards leaner methods of manufacturing.

Who is W. Edwards Deming?

‘A bad system will beat a good person every time’

W. Edwards Deming

William Edwards Deming (1900 to 1993) was an American Statistician who developed ‘better ways for people to work together’. His philosophy outlined the continual improvement of products, services, processes, systems and people. His philosophy was  adopted by Japanese companies after World War II and it is believed that it was these philosophies that helped their export industries recover so effectively. He took the view that in order to improve the quality and quantity of what you are producing you must treat every aspect of manufacturing as a ‘system’ not as bits and pieces that can be bolted together at the end.

Deming developed 14 principals of working practices – many of which have been adopted

by successful manufacturers worldwide – his ideas now seem common sense and even obvious – but this is because they have become so embedded in our working lives that we cannot imagine a time when they were not considered.

At its simplest his philosophy was to continually:

Plan – do – check – and take action.

In Simple terms Deming believed 

- A company’s aims and purposes must be clearly communicated to all employees

- A company must adapt to current trends and philosophies

- You can build quality into a product through the production process

- Create long term relationships based on loyalty and trust rather than on having the lowest price tag

- Work to constantly improve quality and productivity of people and machines

- Have structured and efficient on the job learning

- Train in ‘leadership’ to improve all job functions

- Creating a trusting not fearful environment

- Reduce internal/departmental conflicts

- Focus on the systems and morale of the workforce

- Use leadership methods for improvement rather than production ‘quotas’

- Avoid numerical goals instead learn how to improve the process

- Enable people to take pride in their workmanship

- Include everyone within the company to help accomplish the purpose of the company.

At Continua we are constantly looking to improve everything we do – we don’t take this challenge lightly but we do all take the challenge together.

To find out more about W Edwards Deming and his manufacturing philosophy visit

https://www.deming.org/