News & Downloads

Delivering Process Improvement

We all want to improve the way that we work. Process improvement (digital or otherwise) doesn’t just happen though, someone has to drive these projects. Whose responsibility should this be? Should we ask our divisions to improve their own processes or do we create a transformation team to do it for them.     To start, […]

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Align, Engage, Improve with Effective Tiered Meetings

By Sonja Allen Have you ever considered… How many meetings you have a week? How many of these meetings could be an email? How many of these meetings have few or no results? How many rabbit holes do your meeting conversations go down? How regularly do you talk about what really matters, in a focused […]

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Understanding Lean Leadership

By MEGAN JAMES, European Business Development Manager I previously shared the S A Partners implementation model for Enterprise Excellence and how to use this to build effective training programmes. In case you missed it, you can find it HERE. I received some great queries specifically about the design of the Leadership element so I wanted […]

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Making a Sustainable Impact Full Recording & Transcript
During this webinar, Dr. Bryan Cutliff & Dr. Jeff Radford share their personal experiences, ideas, and techniques that have helped them, and a number of organizations overcome organizational and personal adversity while leading national institutions. We will discuss how to build a sustainable culture of excellence, and the need to stay true to your purpose [...]
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S A Partners Launches Online Learning Capability

Well, ok we may be a bit slow starting but I promise you that we have caught up fast. Over the past three years with the impact of COVID19 we have seen a significant shift in the way we all learn, we have become more comfortable with the use of technology in how we develop […]

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Why I’m uneasy with the term ‘True North’ by John Quirke

I came in for a bit of teasing by a work colleague recently over my uneasiness with the term True North.   We were working with a leadership community in a large automotive business, and he used the term True North, which brought about an obvious and over exaggerated wince from me which raised a few […]

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6 Requirements for Successful Process Management

Too often organisations think that successfully rolling out process management (‘PM’) means simply providing their team members with a process mapping tool, some basic training, and expecting it to just get done. This approach will invariably result in either nothing getting done, or processes being mapped but never followed or updated. While PM might not […]

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Take the TPM Interactive Awareness Course
S A Partners have created an interactive Total Productive Manufacturing (TPM) awareness course that takes you through the background of TPM step by step. You can access this course by filling out the form below, and you will then receive the awareness course link. The purpose of this interactive awareness course is to get you [...]
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S A Partners Named a Winner in 2022 Nintex Partner Awards
London, UK—September 28, 2022— S A Partners is pleased to announce it has been recognized as a Regional Spotlight Award winner of the 2022 Nintex Partner Awards. S A Partners was recognized for its proven ability to help organizations accelerate digital transformation and drive business outcomes with the powerful and easy-to-use capabilities of the Nintex Process Platform. [...]
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A Time To Celebrate
A Time to Celebrate   In May 2022 the SHINGO Institute recognized our team with a coveted SHINGO Publication Award for our book - TPM: A foundation of Operational Excellence.    The team behind the book, the authors Peter Willmott, Andy Brunskill, and John Quirke along with Alex Everitt our graphic designer,  were able to finally meet [...]
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Why Do An Assessment?
Enterprise Excellence is the goal for most, however so few organsitions achieve it, and even fewer sustain it. Having worked with many organsiations over the years on this journey I know it is rarely a simple journey, or one that can be copied from others. It’s not something a leader can impose, or build on [...]
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Making it Happen: The Art of Strategy Deployment
Listen into this 10 minute overview of our latest popular webinar on strategy deployment.  Dr Keivan Zokaei shares insights into how to create tomorrow aggressively whilst running today successfully. To view this overview, please fill out the form details below and receive the overview link by email. If you have any issues, please email our [...]
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7 phases of Business Transformation
Every organisation will move through cycles of growth, change and at times decline.   To strive for success and Enterprise Excellence requires a focus on continuous improvement and the alignment of the organisations purpose, people, and processes. Employee Engagement & culture affect an organisations ability to realise its ideal results, by ensuring your transformation programme [...]
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5 Steps to Enterprise Excellence Guide.
The Five Steps to Enterprise Excellence developed by S A Partners has successfully created over 200 roadmaps globally and has provided a framework for companies, across 20 different sectors, on their journey towards Enterprise excellence. This free booklet helps answer the following questions: What is Enterprise Excellence? How does the Enterprise Excellence model work? What [...]
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Continued Success of Virtual Training
Over the last two years we have delivered our popular White Belt training virtually, demand has undoubtedly increased in recent months as we all transition to a virtual world. There are some great benefits to virtual – flexibility, accessibility for remote teams and cost.  Whilst we still advocate face-to-face training we are seeing high levels [...]
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S A Partners join the European Mentoring & Coaching Council
S A Partners have a number of professional coaches amongst the Executive Leadership Team, Partners and Consulting community. Our coaching and mentoring services complement consulting and training on our Improvement Coach and Leadership programmes. We work with global leaders from shop floor, first line management up to executive level, in sectors as diverse as Defence, Aerospace, Utilities, Process, Food [...]
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Enterprise Excellence Podcast Series
In these podcasts we interview experts on all things Enterprise Excellence, sharing their story and their insights. Experts who believe in achieving sustainable change that betters more than just an organisations’ profit line. Experts who help organisations achieve a symbiotic relationship between environment and economics. Experts who believe in a culture of continuous improvement. We [...]
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11 Step TPM Model Brochure Download
The 11 Step TPM Model developed by S A Partners has become a benchmark for excellence. This model has been deployed in companies worldwide and was the foundation of the awardwinning book TPM: A foundation for operational excellence – written by our team – John Quirke, Andy Brunskill and Peter Willmott. This free TPM brochure [...]
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The Future of Lean, Embracing Digital
This interactive workshop where we looked at how emerging technology can be used to unlock productivity and performance, by engaging all employees in CI. During the workshop process automation experts NINTEX who showed how organisations have embraced digital, the types of platforms available and how to get started with digital transformation. Guest Speakers: Keivan Zokaei [...]
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Adapting TPM to a Major Water Utility Environment

This utility provider in the UK serves 1.4 million homes and businesses. The companies assets include 26,000 KM of water mains, 30,000 KM of sewers and 838 sewage treatment works. The organisation identified an opportunity to address the reliability and productivity of its assets through a TPM programme. Two sites were selected for a pilot […]

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Improving Asset Reliability in a Bottling Plant

Our customer recognised that in order to fulfil an increase in sales of one of their main product lines to retail customers they needed to improve productivity. Together, S A Partners reviewed options with the team on site and agreed that the next phase of their improvement journey would be a TPM programme. This case […]

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Reimagine – Refocus Strategy & Maximising Value
Rethinking Finance & Growth following on from the Reimagine & Refocus Conference series. Hosted by J Frank Holmes, Partner, Gambit Corporate Finance LLP To view this conference, please fill out the form details below and recieve the conference link by email. If you have any issues, please email our technical department who will email you [...]
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Reimagine & Refocus with Acuity Law
Join Steve Berry and the Acuity Law Team for their thoughts on Reshaping Business Structure. To view this conference, please fill out the form details below and recieve the conference link by email. If you have any issues, please email our technical department who will email you the link directly. Email* Company:* Country:*AfghanistanÅland IslandsAlbaniaAlgeriaAmerican SamoaAndorraAngolaAnguillaAntarcticaAntigua [...]
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Leader Standard Work and Gemba Walks
This Leader Standard Work and Gemba Walks webinar presented by John Quirke covered the following: Gemba walk is a tool within a system Leader Standard Work (LSW) is the system LSW interacts across many systems What’s is the purpose of the system LSW What interactions or behaviours support the aim of LSW as a System [...]
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Feeling Proud – S A Partners achieves Investors In People Gold Standard
We are delighted to announce that S A Partners has been awarded the Investors in People Gold standard. This prestigious award has been bestowed to recognize that S A Partners has achieved exceptional standards in leading, inspiring and empowering it’s team. We often use the term ‘Cobblers Children’ to remind ourselves we are a leading [...]
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Reimagine & Refocus Conference 2

This Reimagine & Refocus webinar with Robin Jaques.
To view this conference, please fill out the form details below and recieve the conference link by email. If you have any issues, please email our technical department who will email you the link directly.

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Developing your TPM learning pathway
In the days before TPM an operator in conversation with his maintenance colleague might suggest albeit mischievously ‘I operate, you fix’, I add value, you cost so watch out my friend!’ In order to begin to change perceptions relating to the equipment and it’s operation and maintenance we need to create an ownership culture where [...]
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NINTEX partners with specialist business transformation company S A Partners
S A Partners is delighted to announce a new partnership with the world’s leading digital transformation specialists NINTEX.  The partnership will support S A Partners to deliver it’s world class transformation and training solutions with digital capability.    Today, over 10,000 public and private sector organizations, including more than 50% of the Fortune 500, turn [...]
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Reimagine & Refocus Conference
This Reimagine & Refocus conference looked at the following: Sustaining EBIT Approach with Robin Jaques, SA Partners & J Frank Holmes, Gambit Corporate Finance Management Motivation & Remuneration Structures with Steve Berry, Acuity Law Growth/Succession Planning with J Frank Holmes, Gambit Corporate Finance Panel Discussion & Questions Conclusion To view this conference, please fill out [...]
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10 Years of Lean Competency Training Accreditation
S A Partners is proud to be celebrating 10 years Accreditation with the Cardiff University developed Lean Competency System (LCS). The accreditation has become a cornerstone of S A Partners delivery with our customers. It recognises the standards to which our training modules are held, as well as the capability of our trainers, coaches and [...]
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Driving Change in Financial Services Conference
View the latest conference which took place on the 4th December called Driving Change in Financial Services presented by Dr Keivan Zokaei of S A Partners and Dina Patel of S & P. To view this conference, please fill out the form details below and recieve the conference link by email. If you have any [...]
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Webinar: Aligning Learning & Development to Organisational Strategy
We often see significant misalignment between learning and development activity and the real needs of a business. During a survey of a large organisation employees stated that less than 20% of the learning and development activity they had been involved with in the last twelve months was directly related to the work that they do. [...]
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Moving from Operational to Enterprise Excellence

Why Enterprise Excellence not Operational Excellence? At S A Partners, we believe that Lean and the philosophy of continuous improvement can and should be applied to all parts of the business, not just operations or manufacturing. In the same way, we also believe the approach is equally applicable to service and transactional processes. Operational Excellence […]

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Webinar: SHINGO: Deploying Ideal Behaviours – Part III
Join us for Part III of our webinar series on Deploying Ideal Behaviours. Part III will focus on how you put in place the right systems to measure and monitor engagement. Without this, behaviours can revert back to 'the way they were'. You can catch up on Parts I and II by visiting our website [...]
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Download the Award Winning Publication, Staying Lean
S A Partners are pleased to offer the Shingo award winning book, 'Staying Lean, Thriving not just surviving' as a full, free download using the link provided. This publication won the Shingo Research and Professional Publication Prize in 2009, and it takes you through how to create and sustain a Lean business. It followed Cogent [...]
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Webinar: Achieving Enterprise Excellence in the Service Sector
This webinar has been developed to support our Service Sector Customers - please do join Megan James & Garry Corbet to explore the benefits of undergoing an Enterprise Excellence journey. Using the S A Partners Enterprise Excellence model it will look at how purpose, process and people can be aligned to drive superior customer results [...]
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Webinar: SHINGO – Deploying Ideal Behaviours – Part II
Join us for Part II of our webinar series on Deploying Ideal Behaviours. Part II will focus on how you Deploy and Engage your teams with Behaviours once they have been identified. You can catch up on Part I by visiting our website here but it's not required https://sapartners.com/webinar-shingo-deploying-ideal-behaviours/. The Shingo Enterprise Excellence model focuses [...]
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Webinar: SHINGO – Deploying Ideal Behaviours
The Shingo Enterprise Excellence model focuses on the identification of Ideal behaviours that will enable your organisation to achieve sustainable ‘Ideal’ results. These behaviours must be supported by key systems within the business. But what does this really mean? How do we identify Ideal behaviours? Who identifies them? How do the Shingo Principles help in [...]
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Why TPM (Total Productive maintenance)?
There is no doubt that TPM, whichever definition you use (Preventative or Productive) can significantly improve the reliability, longevity and performance of machinery (assets); and those companies that have deployed it effectively have seen significant returns. Fundamentally, TPM is a series of methods, originally pioneered by Toyota to ensure every machine within a production process [...]
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Webinar: Future of CI in a Changing World: Panel Discussion with Dr Keivan Zokaei & Guests
Join Keivan Zokaei and his guests from the world of Lean & CI for a panel discussion on the future of Continuous Improvement. We have seen remarkable changes happen within the last few months, with companies drastically changing how they operate. Our panel will consider what this means for Continuous Improvement & Lean deployment both [...]
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Webinar: Creating a Roadmap with Virtual Teams
Creating an assessment that can be rolled out and managed virtually will support your organisation to measure and drive improvement and change. Join Gary Griffiths to hear how we can now leverage technology to improve how and when we undertake benchmarks and assessments and how we can deploy the roadmap successfully in a virtual world. [...]
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Webinar: Reducing Stress & Building Resilience with Guest Speaker Adele Stickland
Join us for our interview with Adele Stickland, Author & Wellbeing Expert where we will explore how organisations can support their employees reduce stress and build resilience. Investing in health, wellbeing and resilience are critical business strategies that promotes an environment that develops stronger engagement so that disputes get resolved quicker and builds resilience so [...]
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Webinar: Leader Standard Work and Gemba Walks
Effective Gemba Walks as part of your Leader Standard Work (LSW) System are essential for developing a culture of Enterprise Excellence. Developing and deploying the LSW system within your organisation will ensure you build and sustain the right behaviours. Join Robin Jaques where he will share some of the key principles of LSW and Gemba [...]
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Covid-19-Coaching through Disruption
Keivan Zokaei, partner and head of Financial Services at S A Partners, recently delivered a webcast for the Chartered Banker Institute where he talks about taking advantage of a crisis situation and turning it into a positive one. In this webcast you will: Learn the basic principles of well-being and resilience Learn more about the [...]
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Webinar: Creating a Roadmap for Enterprise Excellence
Join us for this webinar with 'Staying Lean" Author and Industry expert Gary Griffiths to gain inspiration on how to build and undertake a Enterprise Excellence Assessment across multiple sites. Gary will also explore how this will help you develop your roadmap for the future. To view this webinar, please fill out the form details [...]
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Webinar: Essence of Excellence Book Club & Virtual Workshop with Prof. Peter Hines
The Essence of Excellence Book Club & Virtual Workshop webinar with Prof. Peter Hines. To view this webinar, please fill out the form details below and recieve the webinara link by email. If you have any issues, please email our technical department who will email you the link directly. Email* Company:* Country:*AfghanistanÅland IslandsAlbaniaAlgeriaAmerican SamoaAndorraAngolaAnguillaAntarcticaAntigua and [...]
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Towards World Class Manufacturing
Ten lessons from the world's best manufacturers & current thinking around Continuous Improvement which will inspire your best practice journey. Join us to hear how world class companies focus on Continuous Improvement and have achieved Enterprise Excellence. To view this webinar, please fill out the form details below and recieve the webinar link by email. [...]
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Virtual Training – Who Knew?

I’ve been asked to share my experience of lockdown and some “top tips” on virtual training.  Three months ago I knew nothing about Zoom, and hadn’t really bothered getting to grips with Microsoft Teams.  But then everything changed……! I wouldn’t call myself a complete technophobe, but let’s just say I’m often late to the party […]

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What will our future working environment be like?
Dr Keivan Zokaei took part in the ‘Lunch with Mairi’ series recently which are virtual thought leadership events launched by Mairi Macintyre, Associate Professor at WMG. In this episode, Keivan, along with Chris Buckell of Babcock International discuss the impact of Covid, and how the current pandemic will change the way we will work and [...]
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Webinar: Beyond Lean – Towards Behaviour Based Improvement
Join Jeff Williams for a thought-provoking webinar where we will look at the future of sustainable Enterprise Excellence through investing in people development and behavioural based change. Join us if you would like to understand how to put people at the centre of your programmes for operational improvement and efficiency in order to drive sustainable [...]
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