If It Fits It Ships – The Story of the Valenciennes Startup

In 1994, I was responsible for quality control for a ceiling grid joint venture between Armstrong World Industries and Worthington Industries.  At the time, we had two domestic plants, but plans were in place to build a new plant in a town in the northern part of France, Valenciennes.

As an Industrial Engineer, I was very interested in the overall design and layout of the plant, and wanted to help maximize the flow of materials throughout the plant.  I was invited to participate in the early development of design options. 

Working with other staff members at our plant, we came up with what we believed would be the best use of space for the six planned operating lines.  We considered where the raw materials would come into the plant, get stored for the lines, and then after production where they would be stored and then later shipped.  We also considered where the personnel and mobile equipment would interact with the lines and believed we had designed a safe and productive plant for construction.

Compressed and Stressed

We were invited to present our design at an executive review of the top 4 plant design options. I was excited to be included in this critical process.  As the designs were reviewed, it became apparent that the executives liked a design that looked extremely compressed and had conflicting flows of materials and personnel.   As the president of the joint venture was speaking about it, he said that the compressed design allowed the plant to start up three months earlier, as only part of the plant would have to be built to house the operating lines and then the warehouse could be built at a later time.

I knew this design would be unsafe and the plant would be stuck with poor flow for many years to come.  However, the other executives in the room seemed to be in agreement with the president and they were ready to pick this design to build.  I could feel the stress welling up in me and I knew I had to voice my concerns with the decision.  Some of my design team knew I was about to speak up and they looked like they thought it might be my last day working with them.

“Are you willing to risk the future of the plant, just to start up three months early?” I asked them.  The vice president of engineering looked at me and asked me to elaborate.  “If you look at the compressed design, you’ll see that there is no safe way for mobile equipment and personnel to service the lines when they’re all operating.”  I then proceeded to show them how products coming off three of the lines would be in the way of products coming off of the other three lines.  The engineering VP then chimed in and reinforced my point, saying, “That was bothering me too!”  I couldn’t believe that he needed a young engineer to voice this vital concern.  Luckily, I don’t know how to keep my mouth shut.

The conversation in the room changed and the executive team took another look at all of the designs and finally chose our design, with a few modifications.  As we left the meeting, I felt relieved and satisfied that I spoke up. 

Show and Tell Gone Wrong

A number of months later, the plant was getting ready to start production and I was asked to develop quality control drawings and provide training for the technicians who would be checking the products as they were being produced.  I had been to France one other time in my life, but relied on my parents to take me around and deal with any issues.  Now it would be my turn to figure things out.

I was assigned a bi-lingual college student to work with when I got to the plant.  My job was to teach him about how ceiling grid worked, the technical details, and then design a training program for the employees.  The first thing I needed to do was to show him how the grid was supposed to work.

Ceiling grid provides a framework for the ceiling tiles, lights, vents, and other accessories to fit into.  The dimensions must be accurate, or the parts won’t fit.  The company had made some innovations to make the grid stronger, using “stitching”.  Stitching joined the metal together in such a way that it would stay straight and wouldn’t flex when it was being installed.  The stitch also made the metal act as if it was thicker in a way that didn’t get in the way of installation.  There are holes in the grid that allow other grid components to be inserted and connected at ninety-degree angles in order to make the complete framework for a room.

I started at the beginning with my student.  I put a twelve-foot bar of grid on the floor of the plant and told him to imagine it was up in the ceiling.  Then I showed him how the first four-foot bar of grid was designed to go through the hole in the twelve-foot bar.  Next, I told him, “Now, we put the connecting four-foot bar of grid through the hole to meet up with the other four-foot bar like this ….  like this …”  They were both supposed to fit through the same hole and connect to each other, but they didn’t.  What could be wrong?

Fixing a Stitch

I turned one of the four-foot bars around and found that I was able to connect both bars through the hole.  I got more grid and found that 33% of the connections weren’t working.  33% is an unacceptable scrap rate, so we had to figure out what was happening.  It turns out that if the stitch was in just the right (or wrong) place on the ends of two pieces of grid, it made the metal appear to be thicker than the width of the hole, and the grid wouldn’t fit.  We had to figure out how to remove the stitch from the ends of the grid or we wouldn’t be able to sell the grid from our new plant.

It turns out that this was the day the first shipment of grid was to be sent from the facility to their first customer.  There was a celebration in the plant with speeches, cheering, and champagne.  I took the plant manager aside and informed him of what we had found and that we would need to bring the shipment back to the plant in order to assess the situation and protect the customer and the new plant.  He looked unhappy, but understood what he had to do. 

The following day, we determined how to remove the stitch from the ends of the grid and the quality problem was solved.  We delayed the first shipment by two days and the plant was successful for many years following this initial issue.  Being observant and speaking up spared the company from huge losses and damage to its credibility.