Locke Gilmour

Practical Business Improvements

In my role as Business Agility Coach at PBI, I partner directly with clients to embed sustainable improvement through Lean and Agile methodologies. I focus on enabling behavioural and cultural change, building internal capability, and extending business agility across organisations.

I have delivered complex, high-impact transformation projects across the Energy and FMCG sectors, with experience working in diverse environments including production factories, corporate offices, and offshore platforms.

Key Responsibilities & Achievements:
- Facilitate Kaizen Events, Value Stream Mapping sessions, and Agile workshops across operational and support functions.
- Support cultural transformation, visual management rollouts, and daily performance routines to build Continuous Improvement capability.
- Co-designed and led the accreditation of two international training programmes: Lean Practitioner (SCQF Level 7) and Business Transformation (SCQF Level 9), delivered across the UK and internationally.

Highlighted Projects:

FMCG Food Manufacturing Client:
•	£877k/year saving through production giveaway (yield) improvements
•	£480k/year reduction in factory waste
•	£171k/year saved through optimised pallet movements
•	Stage & Gate process implemented for NPD
•	Contributed to the client’s most profitable years in over a century

Oil & Gas Offshore (North Sea):
•	35%+ increase in stock accuracy through 5S/stock check campaigns
•	£1.35M in stock returned to circulation
•	£390k in corrected stock directly impacting planned work
•	39 improvement opportunities identified in material management

Oil & Gas Onshore:
•	Reduced break-in hours to Maintenance Plan
•	40 hours/week saved via offshore transfer of Work Preparation
•	Reinstated Technical Assistance role, freeing up 30% of time
•	8% time reduction for Material Controllers via improved processes

Business Agility Coach

I joined PBI as a Lean Coach during the pandemic, transitioning straight from university into a hands-on role focused on business improvement and internal capability building.

My first year involved an intensive training programme covering Lean and Agile methodologies, including Workplace Organisation (5S), Campaign Rooms, Daily Huddles, Kaizen Events, Visual Management, and Agile workshop design. I quickly progressed from internal training to supporting live client delivery.

I contributed to the digitisation of PBI’s delivery model, transforming previously in-person workshops and coaching sessions into fully remote formats. This shift increased client reach and flexibility, especially for geographically dispersed teams.

In this role, I supported the early delivery of Kaizen Events and improvement workshops, applying structured problem-solving and Lean tools to identify and remove waste, enhance team communication, and build a culture of continuous improvement.

Lean Coach

Impactara Ltd

Alongside working for PBI, I also work for one of their partnered companies, Impactara Ltd, on a part-time basis. Impactara is made up of Improvement Coaches who have a passion for helping purpose-led organisations. Over the past year, I have used my training in Lean and Agile ways of working to help Social Enterprises, Charities and Community Interest Companies improve their business in a variety of ways. 

It has been an especially rewarding experience working with a wide range of businesses as doing some work on a pro-bono or pay-it-forward model means everyone has the opportunity to benefit from the services.

Improvement Coach

I’m a Business Agility Coach with five years’ experience working across start-ups, SMEs, and global organisations in the energy, manufacturing, and production sectors. My passion is helping teams find better, smarter ways of working through Lean, Agile, and continuous improvement methods—whether that means streamlining processes, cutting waste, or boosting engagement.

I’ve seen first-hand how meaningful transformation can be, most notably helping Walkers Shortbread achieve significant cost savings and guiding TotalEnergies to optimise their offshore operations. Beyond the numbers, what truly motivates me is seeing people feel empowered to experiment, adapt, and celebrate their successes together.

Professionally, I hold a Master’s degree in Oil and Gas Enterprise Management (Distinction and ‘Best Student’) from the University of Aberdeen, and I’m a certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt. My focus on continuous improvement extends to my own development—I’m always on the lookout for new learning opportunities to keep pace with industry developments.

If you’d like to connect or explore how Lean and Agile could help your organisation, feel free to drop me a message here or email me at locke.gilmour@pbi-ltd.co.uk. 

I’m always keen to share ideas and help teams discover what’s possible when people work together towards a common goal.

I have since progressed my role within PBI to Business Agility Coach. The role involves working directly with clients on a day-to-day basis, applying the principles of agile development through the use of proven frameworks and methodologies to issues highlighted by the client. Behavioural and cultural change is the long-term goal here, extending the ‘business agility mindset’ across an entire organisation.

Over the past few years, I’ve been lucky enough to work with multinational clients on a number of interesting and varied projects in work environments varying from offices to offshore platforms to production factories! These first-hand experiences have been invaluable to my development within the Business Improvement industry.

I've been able to use this experience, coupled with my own personal development surrounding Lean & Agile methodologies, to improve Workplace Organisation, Visual Management, Employee Engagement and help build a culture of Continuous Improvement across several businesses and industries.

Sample projects delivered:

- Offshore 5S / Stock Check Events: Lead Coach facilitating multiple offshore events offshore on North Sea assets. Improvements included; increase in stock accuracy of 35%+, £1.35M value of stock returned to circulation both on- and offshore, £390k corrected stock directly impacting planned work and 39 opportunities surrounding material management process identified and defined for suggested improvements.

- Shortbread Production: Improvements focussed on Factory Waste, Giveaway, Production Throughput & Labelling.

- Offshore Operational (Maintenance) Planning: Co-facilitated large event with 17 Off- & Onshore personnel. Facilitated the delivery of a reduction in break-in hours to Maintenance Plan, 40 hours saved per week through transfer of Work Preparation to Offshore Team, Re-introduction of previous Technical Assistance role to gain back 30% of time focused on non-technical responsibilities.

Larysa Cameron

Walker's Shortbread Ltd.

Product Development Manager

pladis Global

Product Design Manager - Savoury 

Product Design Manager - Sweet Biscuits

Lead Design Technologist - Cake & Chocolate

Working with the Technical Operations Team to deliver a variety of exciting new growth projects by 2018, as well as being involved in the day-to-day technical responsibilities at the Site. 

Expanding my technical bakery knowledge through working with a broad range of different products and processes.

Lead Process Technologist - Technical Operations

Finsbury Food Group

Main focus was on the factory's caramel process and ways in which it could be optimised. Key objectives of this project included; 
- defining critical control limits for all key parameters involved in production through analytical testing using various equipment; refractometer, texture analyser, moisture meter, aw meter, and viscometer to get a consistently good quality caramel.
- identifying and recommending improvement opportunities on the caramel cookers – equipment, process ingredients/recipes & staff resources required
- determining the main causes of variation in the process as well as analysing conditioning profiles for each caramel type produced.
Also significantly contributed to the success of proving the company’s ability to make a key raw material in-house which has involved working with external consultants to reformulate and create recipes, managing successful trials on-site and off-site, coordinating with Campden BRI to conduct successful expert sensory analysis on a variety of products, and calculating savings and costings as part of the business case. 
As well as the Caramel projects, I have experience with the site's Process Team, assisting with factory & transit trials, alongside shelf-life & micro analysis.

Process Improvement Technologist

Highland Council

During my time in the Highland Council, I was responsible for creating an Alternative Enforcement Procedure for low-risk food businesses in a specific geographical area. This included creating a hard-copy and Survey Monkey questionnaire covering all food safety aspects. 
I was also responsible for responding to and recording email responses, and non-responses onto the authorities database, and also interacting with customers that had any queries and concerns. My time with the council also included assisting qualified Environmental Health Officer on inspection visits to various business establishments covering food safety and standards, health and safety issues, pollution issues and noise complaints.

Student Environmental Health Officer

Loch Ness Gifts Ltd.

During my time at LNG I played an active role in providing a positive customer experience and improving sales by offering help and advice to customers. I was involved in all aspects of the day-to-day running of the store, for example processing payments and maintaining stock levels. It was vital during my time here that I communicated clearly with customers from all nationalities and demonstrated good product knowledge. 
One season, I had the added responsibility of training a new member of staff.

Seasonal Sales Assistant

Polmaily House Hotel

Responsible for looking after guests and attending to their needs during their stay at the hotel.

Waitress

A product developer who loves to tell people that she 'makes' biscuits for a living! 
With over 6 years experience in the FMCG industry I have varied experience within the R&D functions including process improvement, process development and product development to date, and have enjoyed them all! 
I love to be creative, to work cross-functionally with lots of different Teams /people and most of all getting into the bakery and factory and be hands-on. 
My specialities include quickly learning new skills, strong communication with all functions and demonstrable technical understanding, I am quick to adapt and believe I bring positivity and an open-mind to the Teams I work in.

taplio

The Battle

Locke Gilmour

Larysa Cameron

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