Championing Change in Technology

In 2010, a private equity firm took a minority stake in Armstrong World Industries.  They brought in many leaders at executive levels and committed to a strategy of Lean transformation. Their initial focus was manufacturing, and then when ready, they would expand efforts to the supporting organizations.  From 2010 through 2012 in the manufacturing organization, emphasis was placed on Lean training and conducting hundreds of Kaizen events.  In many cases, outside consultants were brought in. But, where there was experience, internal resources worked with teams and facilitated Kaizen events.

I had many years of experience facilitating Kaizen events and I was given the opportunity to travel all over the world, helping teams solve complex problems and keep them solved in a sustainable way.  Although I wasn’t part of the manufacturing organization at the time, I was often requested to facilitate, especially when there were complex problems to solve.

I enjoyed the work, but I also knew I needed to focus on improving my organization, Global Technology.  For years, I tried to convince leadership to utilize Lean to improve their critical processes. While they were interested, they never made the commitment to the continuous improvement effort.

Applying Lean Principles to Global Technology

In January 2012, everything changed.  Global Technology named a new Vice President, who had an extensive manufacturing background. He returned from an assignment in Europe, ready to make an impact on his new organization.  I worked for him indirectly a few years prior to his return, so we already had a working relationship. After letting him settle into his new job for a few weeks, I requested a meeting to discuss the application of Lean to the Global Technology processes. Luckily, I had two sponsors who had seen what Lean was able to accomplish in some global technology test areas, most notably the Pilot Plant.

Together, my sponsors and I met with the VP in March to promote our idea – apply Lean principles to Global Technology in a way that would improve the results of our projects and grow customer confidence. He was intrigued and wanted to know what we would do first. My suggestion was to run a Global Technology Value Stream Mapping event, identifying the highest value opportunities from our customers’ perspective, developing strategies to make improvements over the coming months and years. He was excited by the idea and invited us to present our recommendation to the Global Technology leadership team at their April meeting.

After reviewing year to date Global Technology results, the VP introduced me to the leadership team and told them about the recommendation for the Value Stream Mapping event. He explained how important and critical this work would be and he wanted everyone to clear their calendars so we could get started quickly. Then, he turned the discussion over to me. Most of what I wanted to cover had already been explained, so I started off by saying, “What he said!” Then, I described the Value Stream Mapping process and how we would apply it to the Global Technology processes. The leadership team seemed skeptical, but willing to give this new approach a try. When the VP said he wanted to start with an event in May, I knew we were on a fast-moving train and I had much work to do to prepare.

Identifying the Customers’ Perspective

Over the next few weeks, we contacted some of our critical customers from the plants, Marketing, and other areas of the organization. We also gained commitment from all Global Technology leadership team members to participate in the entire 3-day event, which would be held at a local hotel. I was able to get a co-facilitator who was not part of the working team and together we built a plan for the Value Stream Mapping session that would be relevant for our non-manufacturing processes.

On the first day of the event, a team of 25 high-level participants were in the same room and they heard the VP describe the importance of the effort. Then, he turned the meeting over to me. For the next few hours, I described Value Stream Mapping and then split the full team into working groups to identify the most critical customer requirements. After reviewing those requirements, we mapped out two critical Global Technology Value Streams:  New product development and capital project execution. By the end of the first day, we had a pretty clear picture of the current state and issues that were keeping the team from executing the processes well from their customers’ perspective.

Champion of Lean

The VP sent the team to dinner and asked me to stick around to talk for a few minutes prior to dinner. The first thing he said was, “You’re pretty good at this, how would you like to do this full time?” Immediately I responded, “Absolutely!” He was surprised by my quick answer and told me he hadn’t even made a financial offer. I told him that I trusted him to do the right thing and it was more important for me to do what I love, rather than worry about pay.

The next two days were a blur. Significant progress was made and clear strategies were developed to improve project execution and customer service in the new product development and capital project execution Value Streams.

For the next six years, I was the Lean Champion for Armstrong’s Global Technology organization. During that time, I was able to help teams drive new product development time down from 18 to 10 months, grow the new product portfolio from $150 million to $380 million, and increase customer confidence in the work of the Global Technology organization. More importantly, we were able to create a culture of engagement, empowerment, and improvement in the organization.