Students immersed in the Toyota Way

Toyota Parts Centre Great Britain welcomes two British students
20/10/2016
Work experience is great asset when you try to find a job when you have finished school. Ed and Rob are two British students who had the chance to gain work experience over the last months at the Toyota Parts Centre Great Britain, in Leicestershire, England.

Toyota Parts Centre Great Britain (TPCGB)

Toyota Parts Centre Great Britain (TPCGB) is one of the 14 parts logistics centres of Toyota European Headquarters across Europe. TPCGB in Lutterworth provides Just-in-Time parts supply to about 250 Toyota and Lexus delivery points located in the United Kingdom. The site covers 15.720 m2 of warehouse surface, started operations in 2003 and employs 93 people. TPCGB ship around 14.200 orderlines per day, which equals about 36.000-part numbers. The total amount of stocked part numbers is 76.000 with stock value of 11.5 million Euros.
“It was an excellent experience for both Toyota and the students, who got fully immersed in the Toyota Way and whose fresh pair of eyes helped us to improve our way of working. Definitely a project in line with Toyota’s philosophy of continuous improvement.”
Carl Briggs, Senior Administrator at Toyota Parts Centre
 

Gaining confidence

Ed Reynolds, a year 12 student – a 17-year-old - took care of analysing the Mechanical Handling Equipment on the site and provided the team with the costs per truck, using the available data.
“This project has been a massive success for both the site and also from the local colleges point of view”, says Carl. “Over the weeks he was here I gave Ed project definition and an induction to the Toyota Way, Kaizen, Business process mapping, all of which he used within the project he was given. Although Ed was extremely quiet and reserved when he started, he developed and became a confident and helpful team member.”
Carl Briggs, Senior Administrator at Toyota Parts Centre
 

Positive feedback

One of the many positive remarks Carl and his colleagues received from Ed’s schoolteacher: “I spoke to his dad, and he told me that Ed has been very vocal, telling them everything he’s been doing after his workdays. It’s super not only from a work experience perspective but also as this is boosting his confidence no end, thank you!” 

“We also had a second student Rob (on the picture, together with Carl),” says Carl, “again I followed a similar induction giving Rob a good background knowledge of the Toyota Way, Kaizen, PDCA, etc. It’s our DNA and the skills learnt are transferable to whatever these students want to do in the future. Again, with Rob we have had some great feedback from his teacher."

 

“I just wanted to say how animated Rob has been since he started work experience with you– he’s normally a quiet, reserved student but he’s happy to chat away about Toyota, the methodology and the people he’s met working there so far – you’ve definitely unlocked something in him!”
Ed’s schoolteacher
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