Process Improvement Specialists in Manufacturing and Healthcare

Almco is a process improvement consultancy with a singular focus: operational excellence. We bring a rare combination of 13 years hands-on manufacturing experience and a decade-plus delivering Lean transformation in the NHS and public sector. We’re now bringing both worlds together — and manufacturers are the ones who benefit.

My Story — Why I’m Here

I started my career melting highly specialised alloys, then moved into high volume precision machining — and that’s where I learned Lean properly. Not from a textbook. From the shop floor, under real production pressures, with real consequences. Armed with that foundation, I moved into the automotive sector working with first-tier manufacturers to improve quality, cost and delivery performance, and then into Rolls-Royce Aerospace doing the same.

After years of travelling nationally and internationally, I made a deliberate move into management consultancy. I wanted to test whether the principles I’d used in manufacturing could transform a very different kind of organisation. Working with management consultancies including Deloitte, Capita and specialist Lean boutiques, I went on to work with NHS Trusts across the country, leading large-scale transformation programmes in acute hospitals and social care settings.

What I discovered in healthcare made me a better improvement specialist — because the NHS strips Lean down to its human core. When there’s no profit motive and people are emotionally invested in their work, the only lever that works is genuine engagement. You learn to listen before you act, co-design before you implement, and earn trust before you ask for change.

Why I’m Pivoting Back to Manufacturing

I’m not leaving healthcare — the NHS remains a core part of what we do. But I’ve reached a point where I want to reconnect with my roots and bring everything I’ve learned back into manufacturing.

Manufacturers are brilliant at process. They understand flow, waste, and throughput in ways most sectors don’t. But many are still leaving significant value on the table. In the race to adopt the technologies of the future — AI, smart manufacturing, automation — the operational basics often get overlooked. Yet it’s those basics that determine whether new technology delivers or simply adds complexity to an already inefficient process. Reducing waste, increasing productivity, protecting margins: these aren’t old ideas, they’re the foundation everything else is built on. Get them right, and you’re ready to scale. Get them wrong, and no technology will save you.

That’s where I come in. I bring 13 years of manufacturing credibility, plus healthcare-grade people skills that most manufacturing consultants simply don’t have. The combination is unusual. I think it’s also unusually powerful.

Why I Do It

Because I believe operational excellence is the competitive edge that UK manufacturers need right now. And because I’ve seen — hundreds of times — what happens when people are properly engaged in improvement. They surprise you. The results are lasting. And the culture shifts in ways that no top-down programme ever achieves.

I do this because it works. And because I find it genuinely rewarding.

Our Values

• People first, always — every improvement programme lives or dies by engagement
• Tangible results — we deliver visible, measurable change, not reports
• Honest collaboration — we work with you, not at you
• Transferable thinking — the best ideas cross sector boundaries
• Trust is earned, not assumed — we listen before we advise
• Bespoke by design — no off-the-shelf solutions; everything we deliver is shaped around your specific challenges and goals