At 60, John Neill shows no sign of slowing down. He eats, sleeps and dreams Unipart. He has worked for the company since he was 27, having become British Leyland's youngest managing director a couple of years later, when he took charge of the parts and components division.

In 1987, he led the company into privatisation, then held off a bid from Rover. After it lost the Rover car parts distribution contract in 2002, he reinvented Unipart as a general logistics company.

The Rover parts accounted for more than half of Unipart's annual sales of £800m and Mr Neill says the company would have folded if it hadn't been for its transformation with the help of 'lean manufacturing' theories.

This week, Unipart reported profits down from £19.4m to £19.2m on sales of £1.143bn. It is the city's major private employer, second only to BMW, with 1,500 staff in Cowley and 9,000 worldwide.

A high fence now separates Unipart from its erstwhile 'brother' car factory, and its offices overlook the ranks of newly-built Minis awaiting collection. Unipart's only direct business with the factory today is a contract to make Mini fuel systems at a factory based in Coventry.

Asked about retirement plans, Mr Neill jokes: "I'm planning to go on for ever. I love this company, I love the people in it; I love the customers. It's got huge potential." But Unipart is such a one-man company that one can't help wondering: what happens after he goes?

Mr Neill mentions "a number of my colleagues" who are just as keen as he is on "the way in which we do things here".

Head of corporate communications Frank Nigriello says: "We have all the plans in place for the future, but we are not necessarily broadcasting them."

Not content with rescuing the company from what he says was almost certain ruin, Mr Neill wants to spread the word about 'The Unipart Way' and 'lean' - efficiency techniques inspired by Toyota factories in Japan.

Unipart uses 'lean' to distribute everything from mobile phones for Vodafone to DIY parts for Homebase. It still claims to be the UK's leading provider of parts to independent garages, but the automotive industry now makes up a small part of its business.

Mr Neill is an evangelist for 'lean', which he believes can transform the public sector in the same way that it has revolutionised car factories and supermarket deliveries. A few years ago, Unipart started selling itself as a consultant to other companies which wanted to improve their efficiency.

His belief in 'The Unipart Way' - and the higher margins of this side of the business - leads to his aim for the consultancy division to grow to 20 per cent of turnover within the next ten years or so.

Unipart is undertaking a controversial contract at HM Customs & Revenue, which led to Press reports last year that civil servants were given black tape to mark where to put their pens, pencils and computers, in a bid to keep workstations uncluttered. The story was lapped up by the media, especially when the Public and Commercial Services Union said one employee had been asked whether a banana on their desk was "active".

The 'clean-desk' policy arises because part of the idea of 'Lean' is that everyone - from mechanics to office workers - should have the tools they need ready to hand, somewhere they are quickly and easily found. Unipart proudly quotes a National Audit Office figure that the HMRC efficiencies will save taxpayers £400m. However, this was disputed by a Select Committee of MPs.

Unipart has now won several contracts with hospital trusts, including the Oxford Radcliffe.

When he was in hospital recently for an operation on his hand, Mr Neill - as is his way - got talking to his dermatologist about the Unipart Way. "He told me they were trying to improve efficiency and I said 'You have no chance at all. If you really want to understand efficiency, come up to our warehouse and I will show you.' "The net result was that we got involved with their people, and now we are working at the John Radcliffe."

At the moment, consultancy makes up a tiny proportion of Unipart's turnover, so it is heavily dependent on its logistics contracts - and the financial fortunes of its clients in a marketplace which is likely to get even tougher this year.

The company recently took on 65 new staff at its Cowley warehouse after winning an extension to its contracts with Halfords - for whom it will now distribute bicycles - and Homebase. Earlier this year it won a £5m contract with Habitat, whose 90-plus Wallingford warehouse staff transferred to Unipart.

As for the motor industry, Mr Neill says the Jaguar contract will continue "into the next decade", despite the carmaker's takeover by Indian group Tata.

He believes recent events in the financial markets vindicate his decision to keep Unipart as a private company, rather than floating it on the stockmarket. Born as a management buyout, Unipart now has a large number of employee shareholders.

He is proud of what Unipart has achieved and says: "We couldn't have done this if we had been a quoted company. We would have been driven by short-term City analysts. If you look at what has happened with the global financial crisis, these things have happened because people have made short-term decisions.

He says Unipart will not be insulated from its clients' problems: "We will have to redouble our efforts to train people in the Unipart Way and increase our capacity."