The Viscount Nuffield / Mensforth Lecture 2009: developing great people

What do you think makes your business successful? What does ‘Great’ mean? What drives people to be great – is it nature or nurture? Carol Burke will give you her definition of what makes people great, and the difficulties encountered along the way. She will draw on her experiences within the Unipart Group and the successes she has witnessed. Carol will describe the methodology used, and explain why she thinks it is the way forward to ensure survival in the current climate. The lecture is chaired by Chris Earnshaw, President, the IET.

Carol Burke graduated from Liverpool University in 1990 undertaking various placements within British Steel during her studies. On graduation she joined GKN Axles Ltd progressing through roles as foreman, Production Manager, Works Manager and Business Manager, and finally implementing a new factory making axles for the Vauxhall Frontera. Carol’s fast-track GKN career led to her recruitment in 1994 by one of Unipart’s manufacturing companies, Premier Exhaust Systems Ltd, to introduce and refine Japanese manufacturing methods. In response to automotive industry globalisation. John Neill set up the UEES Joint Venture and appointed Carol to grow the company and its people, and to support the Unipart Group. She used the breathing space afforded by the Phoenix survival years to re-engineer the company by extending Toyota’s ‘lean’ system and the ‘Unipart Way’ to encompass manufacturing engineering, design, end-to-end customer service and human resource management. In 2006 Carol extended her responsibilities. Unipart Manufacturing was established to grow the core fuel tank and exhaust system manufacturing businesses, realise the potential of selling the Unipart Way to clients and develop talent for the Unipart Group. As a core part of this, she developed the UEES ‘Teaching Factory’ - simultaneously a training facility where people learn about the techniques of lean manufacturing and the Unipart Way.