Mars Drinks (Four Square)

Created in 1955, Four Square is the Drinks Division of the Mars Group of companies. With our two market leading brands of Klix and Flavia, we serve over one billion drinks per year, most of which is made at our Basingstoke factory.When you visit us you will get a feeling for the passion we put into our mission of ‘serving the best drinks better’.The visit is centred on our drinks factory where we have been on our lean journey since 1997 and we look forward to sharing with you some of the ups and downs of the past nine years. Whilst we still have far to go, we have learnt much about balancing waste elimination with people engagement, a crucial part of the Toyota 4P model.Various members of the shop floor teams will talk you through the key activities they are proud of and show you what they have achieved.We will cover a few of things we see as some of the best things we do and will welcome your questions and observa-tions on how we do it.

Topics Covered

Building Effective Teams

We will look at how and why our teams have grown – what has drawn the members together, such as shared objectives, and what we have been able to put in place to support team working, such as training and skills development. Our teams have both independence and interdependence, share goals and vision, and take time just to be a team. We will also see how our shift operations back up our team structure.

Lean Manufacturing

The visit will look at: meeting true customer demand; tools and techniques – kaizen, TPM, set-up reduction; one-touch changeover; and waste reduction (time and resources).

Dates

Topic	Capacity	Status	Location
7th October 2008
Building Effective Teams, Lean Manufacturing	12	Taking Bookings	Basingstoke