Solutia goes for gold
20 Jan 2009
Like many chemicals manufacturing sites, the Solutia UK Limited operation at Newport, Wales is increasingly reliant upon its skills base to stay ahead of global competition, while operating within the UK/EU's tightly regulated industrial environment.
The Welsh operation is highly capital intensive: a site turnover of around £100 million a year with just 165 employees, including around 70 shift operators. The main product lines are plasticisers for interlayer films used in automotive and architectural glazing, and - increasingly - photovoltaic cells, as well as heat transfer fluids and water treatment chemicals.
"As a top-tier COMAH, PPC-registered site, we are very regulated and regularly audited and so need to demonstrate where our people are at in terms of competence," said Steve Westhead, managing director of Solutia UK. The site, he noted, also operates to ISO 9001, ISO14001 and the occupational safety specification OSHAS18001.
"It is a challenge running a site like this these days, especially in today's competitive global markets," said Westhead. "The only way you are going to compete is running the facilities a lot cleverer than everyone else."
The MD, for example, cited how the company has increased the capacity of one of the water treatment chemicals plants on site from 10 kilotonnes a year to 20kt/yr without any capital spending. The expansion, he said, was achieved purely through using the skills of its chemists and engineers to improve control and automation on the process.
In this regard, the Solutia boss is optimistic about the potential of the recently formed National Skills Academy Process Industries (NSAPI) and, in particular, its efforts to establish a Gold Standard for skills, to reinforce Solutia's competitiveness.
The Gold Standard is an idea developed with the help of the Chemical Industries Association, said Westhead, who was previously on the CIA's employment affairs board and is now one of two chemicals industry non-executive directors on the Cogent sector skills council.
The concept grew out of a CIA study involving employers, government, unions and academia to safeguard the long-term future of the UK chemicals industry. It is designed to accredit training that companies have already done, and to upskill and raise levels of education and skills across the industry.
Westhead said Cogent had done a good job in ensuring that the new qualifications are rigorous enough to satisfy the training providers and awarding bodies, while recognising companies' existing training and skills base.
Many process companies underwent major NVQ exercises in the 1990s to ensure their operators had recognised qualifications. However, the degree of effort involved in training up assessors and maintaining an NVQ infrastructure has left them with little appetite to take new people through the entire process.
Under new reforms, NVQ qualifications are being broken down into more modular elements with three levels of qualifications - awards, certificates and diplomas - depending on the degree of depth involved. Achieving the top level Gold Standard requires about a dozen points-based award certificates - similar to the approach used for chartered engineers.
"An NVQ is quite a rigorous and drawn-out thing to get so you don't know how well you or your trainees are doing until two years down the line. It's a case of all or nothing at all," said Westhead. "With the new system, you can do a safety chunk or a process improvement chunk. This is a much better way of doing it, especially as these individual elements are well worthwhile doing in their own right, whether you want a Gold Standard or not."
One example is a wall chart in Westhead's office that shows the results of a Lean project that mapped the myriad of process steps involved in filling 25kg kegs with water treatment chemicals. The work has enabled the company to rationalise the process by eliminating non-essential steps, and so double productivity and avoid taking on new employees for the filling process.
While some staff are trained as green belts in Lean/Six Sigma, Westhead said: "In terms of getting such projects embedded across the whole site, the best we can do at the moment is a Lean awareness course so people know what's going on if they are involved in a project. The new system will help people to become better trained and so engage more in this type of work."
The Gold Standard also offers significant benefits to companies in demonstrating competence to the Health & Safety Executive and the Environment Agency, Westhead also believes.
Solutia recently worked with Cogent, NSAPI and an awarding body called PAA-VQ Set to pilot a qualification in emergency response. This involved on-site and off-site training - at a local Fire Service college - having the training audited and accredited by PAA-VQ Set and resulted in Solutia's 15-strong emergency response team becoming the first in the country to get this qualification.
The pilot, said Westhead, showed how Cogent identifies a training need and works with an awarding body to design the qualification: "Cogent is almost like a think tank that identifies the industry's long-term skills needs. It looks at the demographics to see if there are enough people coming through, if industry is attractive enough in those areas, and if there are the right types of training providers and enough colleges doing these courses.
For its part, NSAPI does not do any training, but instead works with companies to find a provider and help them accredit their training, the Solutia MD continued.
"The skills academy is almost like a broker for the Gold Standard, for example finding a college or training provider that does a particular course towards the Gold Standard. There is a clear need for someone to show companies what to do and tell them the providers. That is what the academy is about."
NSAPI is now at a crucial stage, the MD believes: "This could stay as a nice academic exercise that has designed this perfect qualification but nobody really takes it up, or people will go for it and it takes off. We are at that tipping point. The skills academy, if they are any good, will tip it the right way. For the next couple of years we need to see them taking this on and making it go. "
Solutia is among a group of around 50 major companies in the process sector to sign up and put money in to support NSAPI. The contributions ranged from a few thousand pounds up to around £20,000 from major pharmaceuticals operators
For his part, Westhead believes this is money well spent: "We already spend time and money training people in areas such the emergency response and process improvement. For a bit more time and a bit more money you can get a certificate that builds to a Gold Standard. So in that 'bit more money' part of that sentence alone you have probably got a case for the process skills academy."
The Solutia MD concluded: "With something like production or costs you can set goals and KPIs and targets quite easily, but it is much harder to set meaningful HR goals. To say that we will have all our operators trained to the Gold Standard within five years is a meaningful target to have and is actually going to make a significant difference."
The Welsh operation is highly capital intensive: a site turnover of around £100 million a year with just 165 employees, including around 70 shift operators. The main product lines are plasticisers for interlayer films used in automotive and architectural glazing, and - increasingly - photovoltaic cells, as well as heat transfer fluids and water treatment chemicals.
"As a top-tier COMAH, PPC-registered site, we are very regulated and regularly audited and so need to demonstrate where our people are at in terms of competence," said Steve Westhead, managing director of Solutia UK. The site, he noted, also operates to ISO 9001, ISO14001 and the occupational safety specification OSHAS18001.
"It is a challenge running a site like this these days, especially in today's competitive global markets," said Westhead. "The only way you are going to compete is running the facilities a lot cleverer than everyone else."
The MD, for example, cited how the company has increased the capacity of one of the water treatment chemicals plants on site from 10 kilotonnes a year to 20kt/yr without any capital spending. The expansion, he said, was achieved purely through using the skills of its chemists and engineers to improve control and automation on the process.
In this regard, the Solutia boss is optimistic about the potential of the recently formed National Skills Academy Process Industries (NSAPI) and, in particular, its efforts to establish a Gold Standard for skills, to reinforce Solutia's competitiveness.
The Gold Standard is an idea developed with the help of the Chemical Industries Association, said Westhead, who was previously on the CIA's employment affairs board and is now one of two chemicals industry non-executive directors on the Cogent sector skills council.
The concept grew out of a CIA study involving employers, government, unions and academia to safeguard the long-term future of the UK chemicals industry. It is designed to accredit training that companies have already done, and to upskill and raise levels of education and skills across the industry.
Westhead said Cogent had done a good job in ensuring that the new qualifications are rigorous enough to satisfy the training providers and awarding bodies, while recognising companies' existing training and skills base.
Many process companies underwent major NVQ exercises in the 1990s to ensure their operators had recognised qualifications. However, the degree of effort involved in training up assessors and maintaining an NVQ infrastructure has left them with little appetite to take new people through the entire process.
Under new reforms, NVQ qualifications are being broken down into more modular elements with three levels of qualifications - awards, certificates and diplomas - depending on the degree of depth involved. Achieving the top level Gold Standard requires about a dozen points-based award certificates - similar to the approach used for chartered engineers.
"An NVQ is quite a rigorous and drawn-out thing to get so you don't know how well you or your trainees are doing until two years down the line. It's a case of all or nothing at all," said Westhead. "With the new system, you can do a safety chunk or a process improvement chunk. This is a much better way of doing it, especially as these individual elements are well worthwhile doing in their own right, whether you want a Gold Standard or not."
One example is a wall chart in Westhead's office that shows the results of a Lean project that mapped the myriad of process steps involved in filling 25kg kegs with water treatment chemicals. The work has enabled the company to rationalise the process by eliminating non-essential steps, and so double productivity and avoid taking on new employees for the filling process.
While some staff are trained as green belts in Lean/Six Sigma, Westhead said: "In terms of getting such projects embedded across the whole site, the best we can do at the moment is a Lean awareness course so people know what's going on if they are involved in a project. The new system will help people to become better trained and so engage more in this type of work."
The Gold Standard also offers significant benefits to companies in demonstrating competence to the Health & Safety Executive and the Environment Agency, Westhead also believes.
Solutia recently worked with Cogent, NSAPI and an awarding body called PAA-VQ Set to pilot a qualification in emergency response. This involved on-site and off-site training - at a local Fire Service college - having the training audited and accredited by PAA-VQ Set and resulted in Solutia's 15-strong emergency response team becoming the first in the country to get this qualification.
The pilot, said Westhead, showed how Cogent identifies a training need and works with an awarding body to design the qualification: "Cogent is almost like a think tank that identifies the industry's long-term skills needs. It looks at the demographics to see if there are enough people coming through, if industry is attractive enough in those areas, and if there are the right types of training providers and enough colleges doing these courses.
For its part, NSAPI does not do any training, but instead works with companies to find a provider and help them accredit their training, the Solutia MD continued.
"The skills academy is almost like a broker for the Gold Standard, for example finding a college or training provider that does a particular course towards the Gold Standard. There is a clear need for someone to show companies what to do and tell them the providers. That is what the academy is about."
NSAPI is now at a crucial stage, the MD believes: "This could stay as a nice academic exercise that has designed this perfect qualification but nobody really takes it up, or people will go for it and it takes off. We are at that tipping point. The skills academy, if they are any good, will tip it the right way. For the next couple of years we need to see them taking this on and making it go. "
Solutia is among a group of around 50 major companies in the process sector to sign up and put money in to support NSAPI. The contributions ranged from a few thousand pounds up to around £20,000 from major pharmaceuticals operators
For his part, Westhead believes this is money well spent: "We already spend time and money training people in areas such the emergency response and process improvement. For a bit more time and a bit more money you can get a certificate that builds to a Gold Standard. So in that 'bit more money' part of that sentence alone you have probably got a case for the process skills academy."
The Solutia MD concluded: "With something like production or costs you can set goals and KPIs and targets quite easily, but it is much harder to set meaningful HR goals. To say that we will have all our operators trained to the Gold Standard within five years is a meaningful target to have and is actually going to make a significant difference."
