Our History
Unipart Expert Practices (UEP) is part of the Unipart Group whose operations include manufacturing, logistics and consulting. The Group employs 10.000 staff and has a turnover approaching £1 billion.
Originally, we were part of the British Leyland Group – a car company renowned for its poor productivity and terrible employee relations. When we became independent from BL, over 20 years ago, it was clear that we needed to find a new way of working and a new approach to employees.
This new way was informed by the best practice from around the world. While it included the principles of lean thinking, it was also a move from ‘command and control’ to the beginning of ‘employee engagement’. We called it ‘The Unipart Way’.
It meant starting to share information on performance with employees, every day. It meant involving them and listening to their views on the reasons for problems and then encouraging and supporting their ideas for improving productivity. It meant empowering, enabling and motivating employees to start solving problems at their own level.
Today, The Unipart Way is our standard way of working across all of our companies in the Unipart Group. It is the product of our 20 year journey and has been continuously developed and refined, based on our own experience. It is what has enabled us to grow and expand independently, while all other parts of the old BL empire have now either failed or been taken over.
The Unipart Way is our proven method of generating the high levels of employee engagement that we have achieved across our Group.
It is the foundation of our consultancy division which has helped other organisations around the world to adopt this same approach in manufacturing, banking, healthcare, insurance and the public sector.
