Lead from the Front – The Story of the Pink Tools

A large, multi-national company started their Lean journey in 2010. The company brought in consultants, who facilitated and guided Kaizen events and coached leaders at every manufacturing site around the world. One of their plants, in central Ohio, had a strong culture of employee engagement and was expected to lead the other plants in positive outcomes resulting from the Kaizen events. Early on, they weren’t able to identify an internal leader of their continuous improvement journey, so I was asked to act as the interim “Lean Champion” for the plant.

The plant manager, let’s call him Steve, and I had worked together in other roles years before. At one time, I was a direct report of his in the corporate office, so we knew each other very well. Soft spoken and strongly principled, he had the proper mindset to lead a Lean transformation.

Following their initial Value Stream Mapping event, which set the overall Lean strategy for the plant, we agreed the first Kaizen would be a 5S event on their most critical production line. We picked the strongest, most engaged team we could to ensure our first Kaizen would be wildly successful. Top line operators, mechanics, and support staff dedicated five days in order to drive breakthrough safety and productivity of the line.

In the early days of the Lean journey, we were all required to provide a full day of training to the team. Most of the team members weren’t familiar with Lean and the terms used with Lean, so the idea was to make them comfortable by providing extensive training. Most line operators and mechanics don’t have much tolerance for sitting in a classroom all day, so I knew my approach had to be as engaging as possible. Luckily for me, most of the team members had a willingness to learn and a good sense of humor. I infused the training with as much humor as possible, and did my best to entertain them through the long day of training. They hung in there, and when training was complete, we went to the line to see what important improvements we could make.

We walked the line and made many observations. I couldn’t help but notice the extremely dirty condition of the equipment, the floor around it, and the lack of any obvious tools to help the operators and mechanics do their jobs. I asked them what they did when the line went down for repair. The team members took me to their personal toolboxes, which were in various stages of disarray, and explained that if they didn’t have what they needed, they would have to find proper tools elsewhere. They would often lose minutes, if not hours, in search for what they needed. It became apparent having the proper tools was a huge improvement opportunity.

After the tour was over, the team shared their ideas to improve the situation at the line. Many of the ideas had a common theme: having the proper tools where needed, when needed, would greatly improve the safety and productivity of the line. This meant tools would have to be taken out of tool boxes and placed visibly on a board, where anyone could get to them at any time. When the team went to prioritize the ideas to work on, tools availability and visibility became a low priority. I knew there was something they weren’t telling me. Upon further investigation, I discovered trust was the reason tools weren’t picked as a top priority. The team felt their coworkers and contractors working in the plant couldn’t be trusted to return tools when they were finished using them. Even worse, they thought contractors would take tools out of the plant with them intentionally. I knew I had to do something extreme to overcome these trust issues.

“Paint them pink,” I told the team. They looked at me as if I can just come from Mars. “Let me explain,” I said. “If you were to paint all of the tools on the tool board pink, no one would ever wonder where they came from, lose them, or take them out of the plant. Who wants a pink wrench?” Now there was laughter. I wasn’t entirely serious, but I wanted to show them there was an answer and nothing should stand in the way of doing the right thing. Then, I excused myself for a few minutes and let the team mull over my suggestion.

I walked to the plant manager’s office and asked him if he had a few minutes for me. I explained what was going on in the Kaizen event and the mistrust issues the team had. He was aware of tools leaving the plant and wanted to know what he could do to help. This is exactly what is needed from leadership and this was my opportunity to coach Steve. “Steve, we are going to do our best to develop the best system to assure tools never leave the factory and are always available to those who need them. But, we’re new at this, and just like anything else, rules will be broken, so we will need your help. At the report out, we are going to propose this rule: tools are either in use or on the tool board, and no where else ever. We will need you to reinforce this immediately at the end of the report out. Then, the first time someone breaks this rule, you must pound your fist and stomp your feet and make such a fuss that everyone will remember it.” Steve looked at me in a knowing way, but seemed to want a bit more explanation. “How often have you pounded your fist and stomped your feet in front of your employees, Steve? Never! So, do it once and you’ll never have to do it again.” He told me he would consider it. I knew he would do the right thing.

The team sent me to the store to get red paint (not pink) and built a tool board filled with red tools. The rest of the line was cleaner and more organized than it had ever been. During the report out, the team pleaded for everyone to help them maintain the conditions of the line and keep the tools on the new tool board. Steve chimed in to reinforce the importance of this new rule: either in use or on the board, but nothing in between, ever. After much congratulating, the team disbanded, their job well done.

About 2 months later, I was facilitating another Kaizen team in the same plant, when during a process walk, I was called over by an operator, let’s call him Bob, who had been on the original 5S team. Bob showed me the tool board with all the tools in their proper place. I asked him if anyone tried to break the rule. He said it only happened once, and when Steve heard about it, he raised such a fuss it shocked everyone and it never happened again.