Profiling quality excellence

Rightly proud of the evolution and progress of its QHSE department, as well as the certifications it holds, the P.P. Group has established itself as a leading provider of profiling, processing and manufacturing services.

The Group recently undertook a restructuring exercise to establish itself as a group of consolidated companies rather than a series of individual entities. Historically, the P.P. Group has behaved as individual companies, progressing at different rates, both in performance and more importantly culturally.

The restructuring has also meant altering all forms of its internal and external communications rather than as individual companies. In addition, all advertising, exhibitions and any other marketing communications are now carried out under the group's over-arching brand.

As part of the internal (operational) restructuring, the P.P. Group now transfers knowledge between its companies by means of job rotation. The objective here is in adopting best working practice across the Group. It has been careful not to assume that any of its companies currently operate in the most effective manner, and instead monitors the progress during the job rotation phase to measure best results.

In terms of the types of quality demands placed on the Group by today's aerospace customers, its aim is to develop a sector that it currently doesn't have a huge presence in; the aerospace sector being an obvious area to target growth. The Group says it has the necessary certifications in place and already operates with the latest CAD techniques that are relevant to the aerospace sector.

The cut and thrust

It is the Group's waterjet and bevel waterjet cutting, laser cutting, flame cutting, heat treatment and surface grinding services that will be of particular interest to the aerospace sector - services already very familiar to the P.P. Group of companies – and all of which can be supplied in accordance with AS9100 Rev C.

In addition, the Group's location also drives its interest in the aerospace sector. P.P. Group's companies have always been based in the North West of England – an area where many key players in this sector are located.

P.P. Group's customer base is concerned with material traceability. Here, the Group can provide an automated material certification system that when audited, provides its supply chains with 100% confidence that human error is almost completely eradicated from its process.

This is important across the supply of all materials and especially vital with the increased significance of security and safety. In a nutshell, fully automated material traceability is something that is demanded by the Group's existing customers and one of its USPs.

In October 2015, the P.P. Group re-joined the Northwest Aerospace Alliance (NWAA) to help it meet strategic corporate objectives. “We are working very closely with the NWAA,” says P.P. Group's new marketing manager, Sasha Kushnir. “Firstly, we've already done and will continue to attend most networking events organised by the NWAA. Secondly, we've sponsored several major events, including being the main platinum sponsor of the Annual Conference to be held on the 12th of May. Lastly, we'll be exhibiting with the NWAA at the Farnborough Airshow in July.”

The Group says that another USP is its understanding and appreciation for material usage – particularly as aerospace materials can be extremely expensive. Key customers consider the P.P. Group as ‘experts in materials utilisation' and as a result, the Group is eager to share and spread this expertise with many companies in the aerospace sector.

Automation for the nation

The above, coupled with P.P. Group's overall CAD skills is said to maintain its presence at the forefront of UK's profiling and processing industry. To ensure its commitment is relevant across the full supply, the Group claims its service levels are a cut above its competitors. All of this is in line with the P.P. Group's mission statement, which is about using ‘autonomation' or ‘intelligent automation', to remove cost from the manufacturing chain for both its suppliers and customers.

“Autonomation is at the heart of everything we do as a group and our ultimate goal is to take it to all our customers and suppliers in order to reinforce global supply chains,” states Kushnir.

The Group has established its own internal IT company to foster autonomation between its suppliers and customers. P.P. Group's sole aim is to remove time and cost from the supply chain and promote the future of UK manufacturing.

“By utilising knowledge, experience and professionalism in everything we do, we aim to deliver the ultimate service to our clients,” Kushnir continues. “We will continue to inspire the industry to follow ‘the P.P. way' in processing, material management, process excellence and customer service by placing our brand values – people and autonomation – at the core of everything we do.”

It's a journey on which the Group will meet some big challenges – one of which it says is the ongoing increased threat from BRIC countries. The Group reckons the long-term threat to the UK carbon steel and stainless steel industry is very real and one it needs to combat with technology and automation. Not just cutting processes: P.P. Group wants to help its suppliers and customers through technological improvements to remove as much cost as possible from the supply chain.

“Collectively we must improve the UK's manufacturing processes to protect the UK industry,” states P.P. Group managing director, Peter McCabe (pictured). “For example, improving the way we produce our parts to ensure we remain capable of competing against other low-cost manufacturing countries such as China.

“We see this threat growing continuously into 2016 and beyond. It is imperative we all realise how serious this threat is and deal with it by improved manufacturing methods, sooner rather than later. The longer this threat is ignored, the greater the damage to UK manufacturing.”

Committed to quality

In 2010, P.P. Group saw an opportunity to introduce a QHSE department into the business. Prior to that, it used an external supplier and certain members of management to control the system. The Group realised that the long-term security of the business depended on driving continual improvement, but couldn't achieve this on a part-time basis.

As a result, the Group developed its QHSE department internally, starting with one departmental employee to a point where it now has three full-time employees. The scope of the department has grown over five years, and in 2012 P.P. Plasma became the first company in the group that introduced ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 to complement AS9100 Rev C/ISO 9001:2008. The Group's QHSE-related objective is to introduce these additional standards across all its companies over the next two years.

Group QHSE manager, Steven Hughes concludes: “Since the introduction of the QHSE department there have been transitional changes in every department for the good. Each process is measured, which has improved our overall communication methods and professionalism throughout.”

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