Alignment and Leader Skill-Building Propels Improvements
Q. When improvement missions stall, a pattern of “fail to stick” becomes evident, and you feel like your efforts are going into a black hole, how do you get your arms around a mission with so many moving parts?
Client
A midsized manufacturing plant making bottle caps.
Challenges
Business numbers hadn’t improved for years.
Lean manufacturing had been put in place piecemeal. Continuous improvement efforts and operations managers would attempt a solution and get improvements in some areas, yet problems would occur in others. For example, the pull system worked great for the shopfloor, but then scheduling and the front office had more problems. Missed shipping dates were causing the company to lose business to international competitors.
In addition, several plants had different cultures. For example, the employees in the Midwest plant were vocal about their dissatisfactions, but employees in the South stayed silent. Not surprisingly, managers reacted differently to the employee complaints and silence. Some managers backed off because they feared creating more issues, while others tried to address the problems on their own. Each used their smarts and creativity to work through constraints as they saw fit, yet they felt frustrated because their efforts were being thwarted by other managers who were also doing the same thing. All the managers were working hard, but not in alignment.
To try to get ahold of the problem, leadership went through a series of managers. Some managerial styles were more overtly empathetic and some more command-and-control-like, yet no one was able to get the system on the same page, nor get to the heart of the matter.
Solutions
To solve the complex problem in the least amount of time and with the least amount of effort, we delivered an interactive goal-alignment process. The first team included the plant manager and his lead team. Their goal was to start at the beginning and clarify the overall plant goals.
This process and associated training were cascaded down to each workgroup to ensure their goals fit into the overall plant goals. Each workgroup’s goals were clarified so that they understood how their goals and department fit in with the other departments. At the end, everyone walked away with a clear sense of what they needed from others and what others needed from them.
The process also highlighted the work processes that needed improvement or adjustments. Employees raised the issues that most needed to be solved, providing vital information to work through constraints and enable goals.
To ensure success and support group skills, a critical mass of employees also participated in an experiential training to increase their emotional intelligence (EQ) and interpersonal and conflict management skills. The training used the projects that people were already working on and helped them solve problems real-time. In addition, we developed an onboarding process for leaders, so new leaders went through a facilitated process.
Results
Since everyone was aligned to the plant goals, lean priorities became clear. The company was able to streamline its goals, focusing on the highest priorities and letting go of the lower priorities.
In addition, the training fostered better working relationships. The employee training helped to ensure that the right managers were prioritizing the right actions, and the leader onboarding helped to accelerate the pace of work.
In two years, the plant achieved these improvements:
Lost work day rate from 0.25 to 0
Total recordable rate from 3.73 to 1.58
First pass scrap from 6.43 to 2.70
Output per employee from 2983 to 3559
Complaints from 3.2 to 1.2
Yearly claims in dollar amount from $4,000,000 to $79,000
