Description
Cerulean is a market-leading supplier of quality control instrumentation and analytical smoke constituent capture machinery to the tobacco industry, independent laboratories and government bodies. Cerulean also provides equipment for the handling and packing of tubular products. Although the company is well established, this has not inhibited us from trying to improve our service to our customers. We have been undergoing change over the past few years in order to create a more responsive, customer focused organization. These changes have been to the processes, the structure and the size of the organization. Our service organization has grown and is now supported with over 30 engineers who operate in 13 countries through 15 sales and service centres. Our service structure continues to grow to accommodate our developing global service capability. This increased capability is supported through a growing order intake which is itself facilitated by our ability to offer a broader range of products and services than in previous years. This evolving range of products and services is perceived as a key strength of Cerulean. We will continue to develop products and services that provide innovative solutions to our customers' measurement and packing requirements. Our product development capability is also being strengthened to deliver this flow of new products. The skill levels of the team are being increased and we are developing capabilities in areas outside our traditional product development areas. We are also investing significantly in development capabilities with around 9-10% of our revenue reinvested in product development activities.
In recent years we have implemented lean manufacturing techniques to increase our manufacturing effectiveness. This has allowed increased flexibility and shorter product lead times. Savings generated through more efficient manufacturing have been passed on to our customers through price reductions. We continue to develop and sharpen a customer focus for our activities. Much of the change wrought in Cerulean in the past two years has been as a result of customer feedback and through our desire to improve our products and service for our customers. We recognize that in tough global market that only the truly excellent companies will thrive. To this end we have begun a change programme that focuses on developing the attitude and approach of our employees. This is in the form of a culture change. We have embarked on a transition that will develop a culture where our employees strive restlessly to deliver excellence. This culture of excellence will require us to constantly question our processes, products and actions with a view to evaluating how they can be improved.
Continuous improvement is the underpinning of this change programme, change not only in small incremental steps, for example through our Kaizen projects, but also though radical changes. This type of radical change is exemplified by the recent restructuring of our spares facility to provide a dedicated team with a single focus and span of control from spares order receipt to dispatch. It may also take the form of new products developing out of our research into new sensor technologies. Our mission for Cerulean is to be an organization that delivers excellence through innovation and the pursuit of improvement. To achieve this we will develop and encourage our employees to pursue excellence in their work environment through continuous improvement, learning and working together. We are working towards Investors in People accreditation and this reflects a structured approach to the development of our employees. We value innovation and encourage training and development in pursuit of this. The company was recognized for its innovation capability in 2005 by winning the MX2005 award for Product Innovation. The Manufacturing Excellence Awards (MX) scheme is managed by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and is acknowledged as rewarding excellence and best practice in UK manufacturing. The MX2005 Innovation award was made by a panel of distinguished academic and industrialist judges who looked for evidence of a systematic and sustained approach to the development of new products. Cerulean was able to demonstrate this with an innovative culture shift that encouraged risk-taking and "thinking the unthinkable". Benchmarking through activities such as the MX awards allows Cerulean to identify opportunities for improvement and provides exemplars of other organizations' best practice. We will continue to seek out improvements in our organization so that we can deliver products and service considered excellent by our customers.
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