Industry Forum

Automotive Manufacturing Consultancy

We're here to help

As times become increasingly tough for the automotive sector, Industry Forum can help your business adapt to the current climate so it’s in the best possible position to compete on the global stage and respond to future demand, becoming the stand out supplier of choice.
As the largest provider of manufacturing consultancy and training services, we have a team of more than 150 specialists who have upskilled over 25,000 people across 30 countries. We are approved and certified by international trade bodies and our client list features all the big players, including BMW, Jaguar, Land Rover, Aston Martin, Rolls-Royce, Nissan, Toyota and Honda.
We have been supporting blue chip vehicle manufacturing suppliers in the UK and beyond for more than 25 years and have used our considerable experience to help them realign services to optimise productivity, enhancing their competitiveness and performance. This applies from the shop floor to board room level consultancy.
Our clients report that we have improved their quality and delivery performance, reduced work content and lead-times, created tighter inventory and batch sizes, made more efficient use of facility space and shorter transport delivery trips. Ultimately, this results in new contract wins and growing the existing business.

What does IF offer your business?

Leading Expertise

Business Value

Attainable Results

Challenges Currently Facing Manufacturers:

  • Lack of skilled workforce and reliability

  • Lower budget forecasts and fixed costs

  • Fluctuating volumes, leading to panic production from a reduced team

  • Reorganisation and restructuring of volume manufacturers

  • Supply chain consolidation and supply to multiple locations

  • Changes in car buying habits/introduction of new vehicle platforms

  • Needing to compete on a global basis

IF's Programme of Improvements:

We will help ensure your business becomes more agile and flexible in responding to requirements in terms of volume and mix and more able to develop and launch new products quickly, creating innovative and value added solutions. You’ll be much better placed to compete globally in terms of quality, cost and delivery, while managing consistency and offsetting supply chain risks.

Our consultancy is about helping clients be more competitive and as an affiliate of National Manufacturing Competitiveness Levels (NMCL), we can access funding you can spend on automotive supply chain improvements through training, coaching and mentoring.

By working closely and collaboratively, Industry Forum will examine and evaluate your systems and processes with an expert and objective pair of eyes, finding the root of any problems which are frequently occurring. We will then implement new, lean strategies to optimise productivity and reduce waste by: 

  1. Adopting best practice operational methods such as 5S workplace organisation, Standard Work in relation to documentation and Line Balancing. This is applied to assembly lines to harness resources to ensure products are delivered on time

  1. Using Value Stream Mapping to maintain profitability and improve productivity whilst streamlining inventory

  1. Developing Lean Supply Chains through product flows in every direction, pooling shared data to reduce costs and waste in the system

  1. Structured problem solving to resolve quality control and operational issues

  1. Setting up and supporting new processes to manage quality standards

  1. Upskilling your team leaders to become supervisors, giving them the insight and enthusiasm they need to identify and solve problems

Industry Forum Engineers will work with the manufacturing workforce and managers to deliver the most appropriate plan of action via a series of workshops and will then provide coaching and mentoring. This training-led approach ensures the effective utilisation of the new systems and processes, leading to sustainable ongoing improvement. We do not leave until all parties are 100% content with the new practices in place.

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