Company

Greg Simpson has many years experience of contract/interim management, turning around company fortunes by managing them out of trouble (as MD / General Manager/ Factory Manager) or consulting is ‘Lean' techniques.

Glen Walmsley is an exceptional Kaizen and Lean specialist with years of experience who gets full involvement in this process from the shop floor through to managerial levels.

Together we have been helping companies rapidly improve their performance and culture both nationally and internationally.

Greg and Glen met in 2002 at BMW 'Plant Oxford' and were an integral part of the Mini success story. Glen was leading the Kaizen events (continuous process improvement) and Greg was part of a team of 3 senior coaches leading their 'WinGs' (working-in-groups) culture change programme. BMW went on to pick up the top CIPD award in 2003 for people management (People Management magazine).

Glen moved onto Kellogg's and guided their team to improved line turnarounds using a team based Kaizen approach to SMED. Results were line change-over reduced from in excess of 8 hours to 40 minutes with no investment.

Greg went to Icon Polymer Group initially doubling the output of a manufacturing department in 6 weeks and then managing their Retford factory for the Group MD. The factory could not satisfy customer orders in all sectors (aerospace, automotive, domestic appliance and pharmaceutical).

As part of the recovery process Glen was brought in to work on improving the throughput while Greg led the recovery, restructured and prioritised. Shop floor visual management was introduced through the establishment of several 'Performance Centres' and a 5S programme across the factory was initiated. The Performance Centres were owned by the area first-line manager and became a focal point for the improvement as they contained information on; performance, 5S workplace organisation and people flexibility. Each chart in the centre was owned by trained members of the team. Performance improvements were rapid and sustainable because of the ownership in the performance centres. Greg and Glen were now starting to prove that their change methodology really worked and achieved sustainability through their people IT structures. The birth of the FirstLine™ concept was achieved.

Once the recovery was complete Greg and Glen moved to Alcan. Greg as General Manager in their UK packaging factory (£100M Turnover 460 people) and Glen as Kaizen Leader for the site. Delivery, Quality and Culture were all problems. Shop floor visual management was delivered through 'Performance Centres' focussing on KPI's, 5S and People flexibility. Business turnaround was again successfully achieved. The prototype software we now know as FirstLine™ became even more refined.

A further successful business turnaround at an electronics factory in the Republic of Ireland yet again demonstrated the robustness of the turnaround model and the prototype FirstLine™ software.

In 2004 the decision was made to formally develop FirstLine™ into a unique and professional software application to support People in the change process. At this point Bubble Quest was formally established.

The University of Wolverhampton department of Innovation was commissioned in 2004 to assist in the development of FirstLine™ and market analysis. They concluded that no integrated Lean software existed. Bubble Quest engaged two leading software companies to develop FirstLine™ to provide a robust software infrastructure for their winning technique. Thanks to PerfectArc and Genus systems for a job well done.

Bubble Quest has now become a company that not only offers its client first class Lean consultancy, but also a Lean software infrastructure providing sustainability unique to Bubble Quest.