A Gemba Walk Like No Other

Before I facilitated my first Kaizen event at CITY Furniture, we agreed I should learn the business from the inside. So, I spent a week embedded in their distribution center, shadowing employees and learning the flow.

The culture was strong, engaged, and motivated. But people were frustrated. They hadn’t had a Kaizen in a while, and they were hungry for change. I was there to help reignite that spark.

I spent time in the repair shop, helped planners with order tracking, and eventually got paired up with an order picker named Andy. His job was to locate furniture across a 1.6 million square foot facility and deliver it to the floor for shipment.

Andy showed me how he used barcode scanners and optimized routes to work efficiently. Then he asked, “Want to help me with an order?”

Next thing I knew, I was wearing a harness and vest, clipped into an “order picker,” a lift with a platform designed to retrieve furniture from towering racks.

Up and down we went, pulling product from the sky. At one point, 45 feet in the air, Andy turned to me and said, “I forgot to ask, are you afraid of heights?” I laughed and replied, “You picked a fine time to ask!”

We kept working, and I gained a deep appreciation for the skill, care, and judgment required in that role. It’s easy to underestimate the complexity when you're watching from the ground.

By the time I returned to the office, everyone had heard about the consultant in the air. They also knew I wasn’t there to sit on the sidelines. I was there to understand, serve, and support.

You can’t lead improvement from behind a desk. Real change starts when you walk the floor, get your hands dirty, and show people that their work matters.

Get it Right Early, the Rest will take Care of Itself

I’d been running reliability and center lining events across the country, and it never ceased to amaze me how small adjustments like leveling rollers, aligning equipment, straightening processes, could transform an entire line. We were seeing 90% fewer jams, 20% higher yields, 40% productivity gains, and a massive boost in team ownership. It was life-changing.

I decided to convince another client to try this approach in his composite decking factory. While the product was thicker and more stable than others I’d worked with, I knew the principles would still apply.

When I reviewed the concept with my sponsor, he admitted they were battling jams that caused serious disruption. He immediately invited me to run a reliability Kaizen on a key production line.

At first glance, the line seemed simple: straight path, thick product. But once we dug in, the misalignment was obvious. Early in the process, a set of rollers fed stabilizing sheets into melted vinyl. The roller system was out of level, causing tension and stress at the mixing point. Once corrected, the sheets fed evenly, drastically improving flow.

Next, we tackled the water bath where the decking was formed. The “carrier” that transported product through the bath was tilted. That misalignment made the material rise or fall, throwing off the next equipment in the line and potentially causing jams.

We built custom brackets using materials on hand to support the carrier at the precise height and alignment. Then we created easy-to-use visuals to ensure it could be consistently set up.

Once everything was lined up and squared off, we started up the line. It ran beautifully. From that stable foundation, we aligned every piece of downstream equipment. The results? Significant productivity gains, reduced safety risks, and a team that now applies the method to other lines in the plant.

When you take the time to get it right early in the process, everything becomes easier downstream. In reliability Kaizen, precision builds momentum and momentum builds belief.

The Ultimate Leadership Commitment

When I engage with new clients, I always gauge one thing up front: Do they have true Leadership Commitment? Without it, even the best Kaizen efforts will fizzle. With it, anything is possible and sustainable.

One example I’ll never forget came during a follow-up 5S Kaizen in a New Jersey manufacturing plant. Our first event had reduced tool and supply search time by 90% and lit a fire in the maintenance team.

Not everyone had been part of that first event. Some sat out to keep operations running and were skeptical their voices would be heard. But once they saw the results, they were eager to join round two.

We expanded to new areas: the electrical repair shop, outside storage, a mezzanine, even a pair of old shipping containers in the parking lot. Deep into “Sort” on Day one, we got word of a serious chemical upset in the plant. Our team leader, the Maintenance Manager, had to leave. I assumed the Kaizen would be put on hold.

But the leadership team made a bold decision. They would personally handle the crisis. They donned hazmat suits and tackled the environmental emergency so our team could stay focused on improvement. We got the Maintenance Manager back quickly.

It wasn’t easy for our team leader to stay on the sidelines. Normally, this was his job. But the plant leaders valued the Kaizen event enough to step in themselves.

Yes, we lost a team member here or there for the emergency effort. But by the end of the week, the crisis was under control, and our Kaizen team had cut “find time” by over 70%.

The biggest breakthrough was the clear alignment and support that the team received from their sponsors. They felt like they were working on something important and they were. I have no doubt that their results will live on and more employees will want to engage in similar work. They now know that their leaders have their backs.

Leadership isn’t just about solving problems—it’s about creating space for others to do their best work. When leaders show up for their people, their people show up for the work.

Turning the Factory Upside Down

When a packaging company reached out to me about facilitating a 3P (Production Preparation Process), I was intrigued. It’s the most advanced Kaizen approach I offer. They wanted this to be their very first experience.

Fortunately, I had an ally. Brett, a longtime colleague from my Armstrong days, had joined the company and believed 3P was the only way to address the plant’s design and operational constraints. The plant was bursting at the seams, and their lease made change feel impossible. But Brett believed they could break through.

Our goal: Develop 1–3 bold options to get the plant back on budget and positioned for growth, without relocating, if possible.

As expected, day one brought skepticism. In 3P, we ask people to suspend their constraints and imagine possibilities no one has yet seen. That’s a tall order.

The team followed the process, even when it didn’t fully make sense to them. At one point, I had to give tough love to a company veteran who wanted to skip a step and revert to his usual methods. He didn’t talk to me for a few hours, but by day three, everything changed.

The energy flipped. They saw it. They believed it. They were building something new and it could work.

By week’s end, we had two viable plans. One that reconfigured the current space and one that required a new building. Both met the business goals and sparked new thinking across the team.

At the report-out, the excitement was contagious. Brett strengthened his credibility and standing in the company. The team felt empowered. Some have since moved on, but they still reach out to say how much that 3P experience shaped them.

Breakthroughs don’t come from doing what you’ve always done. When you trust the process and your people new possibilities come into view.

Pick Your Winning Team

I’ve told many stories from my time at Armstrong, especially about improving board flow in our Macon plant. This one’s about something less technical but equally vital: choosing the right team.

After years of helping improve various lines at Macon, leadership asked me to focus on their highest-demand line. I agreed on one condition: I wanted to hand-pick my team.

Their first response was, “Why? Can’t you just use a few operators and mechanics like you always do?”

I said, “Sure, but this time I want the best. No training, no convincing. Just execution. And we’ll need less downtime to make it happen.” They immediately said yes.

At the top of my list was Kevin. He was the most creative mechanic I’d ever worked with. He could build or fix just about anything. He wasn’t in that role anymore, but I convinced him to come out of “retirement” for this project.

We added two more top-tier mechanics, three experienced operators, and an operations manager I’d worked with before. That was our team.

Day one was spent reconnecting and joking about how I pulled Kevin back in. Then, we walked the line and laid out our plan: establish fixed “zero points,” align the equipment to those references, and lock everything down so it couldn’t drift.

Each equipment adjustment was done faster than expected. The team didn’t need to be sold. They were already bought in. And because the operations manager was on board, we had no roadblocks getting the downtime we needed.

I was amazed at how smooth it all went. Less oversight. Fewer obstacles. More results.

These days, I still love giving new people Kaizen opportunities. But when the stakes are high, I hand-pick the team. To this day, I encourage my sponsors to pick their winning team to tackle the most critical issues.

Butt Ugly by Friday

I’ve collected a lot of sayings over the years I use during Kaizen events. Some are pretty familiar, like “Go to Gemba” or “Don’t let best get in the way of better.” But the one that seems to get the most attention and sticks with teams long after the event is: “Butt Ugly by Friday.”

Let me explain what it means and where it came from.

Kaizen events I facilitate run for a week or less, typically wrapping up on a Friday. By the end of the week, the team reports out to an audience and gets to show off the changes and improvements they’ve made. The challenge of Kaizen is: teams usually have more ideas than time. They want to improve many things, but they can easily get bogged down trying to make each one change perfect.

Years ago, I was facilitating a Kaizen in Pensacola, Florida. One of the teams was stuck on the same problem for two or three days. During a check-in with the local Lean manager, I mentioned the issue. His response changed the way I coach teams to this day.

“Adam,” he said, “you’ve got to tell them to get it Butt Ugly by Friday. That’s what we always say at the plant. It helps shift the mindset from perfection to progress. It doesn’t have to look pretty; it just has to work.”

I took his advice and helped the team move forward, even though their solution wasn’t perfect. It still made things better. Kaizen isn’t about perfection. It’s about improvement.

I use the term “Butt Ugly by Friday” in my introductory training with Kaizen teams on Day 1. It sets the tone right from the beginning. We’re not chasing perfect. We’re chasing better, safer, smarter, and faster. It gives teams permission to try things, test quickly, and learn fast. By the end of the week, team members remind me that they have improved things and made them “Butt Ugly by Friday.”

The phrase is simple, silly, memorable, and effective. People feel comfortable experimenting and are willing to fail quickly. Instead of waiting until the end of the week to find out if something works, they find out now.

Continuous improvement should be so simple and accessible that anyone can do it. More importantly, they actually want to. That’s how to build a culture where improvement can happen anytime, anywhere, from anybody.

Shining Like a Star

I love facilitating Kaizen events. They can be life-changing. Some team members grow so much over the course of a single week, it’s hard to believe they're the same person by Friday. This is the story of one such transformation, a moment that left people amazed.

Our team was working on a critical issue in the maintenance shop and support areas. It took over 20 minutes to find the parts, tools, or equipment needed for a repair. That might not sound like much, but when a maintenance technician has to go back and forth seven times for different tools or parts, the time adds up fast. It has a direct impact on equipment downtime.

We chartered and scoped the event to cover the inside maintenance shop, an upstairs storage area, a heavy-duty outdoor rack, and a shipping container (about 50 feet long) sitting on the pavement behind another building. Along with improving safety, our goal was to reduce "find time" by at least 75%, with a goal of 5 minutes or less.

The team consisted of four hourly maintenance technicians, their leader, my sponsor, an engineer, a maintenance planner, and the HR leader.

We kicked off bright and early at 6 a.m. Monday, which was the team’s normal shift start. They were quiet, skeptical, and clearly not ready for what was about to happen. I brought the energy, and a few of them perked up a bit during our Lean and 5S overview. We would be utilizing 5S (Sort, Set in Order, Shine, Standardize, Sustain) as the approach to meet our goals.

During our Gemba walk, everyone was jotting down ideas on Post-its. The spaces were packed with clutter. I could already tell we’d hit our goals easily, but the team wasn’t so sure—they were still stuck in their current state mindset.

When we walked out to the shipping container, I noticed Steve, one of the mechanics and a big, strong guy, writing furiously.

Me: “Steve, looks like you’ve got a lot to say about this container. What’s on your mind?”

Steve: “Adam, I’m in here all the time—sometimes at night, in the rain. Look at me—I sweat just walking in during summer. And it’s pitch black at night. I can’t see anything.”

Me: “What are you usually looking for?”

Steve: “PVC parts. There are thousands of them. They’re all mixed up. Sometimes it takes me hours to find what I need.”

He wasn’t exaggerating. Some of these parts were barely an inch long, mixed in boxes with all kinds of unrelated items. I wasn’t sure why they were even stored outside, but I hoped we could fix that.

After our walk, we got together to share improvement ideas. Our first step was Sort. We broke the team into three groups: one for the shop, one for the upstairs storage area, and one for the shipping container.

I volunteered for container duty. Most folks were happy to avoid it. The weather was cold but clear. The engineer joined me, and we got direction from Steve and the maintenance lead on what to toss and what had to be kept.

We filled two dumpsters with obsolete filters. It turns out a vendor handled all filter replacements now with their products. This was an easy win.

Next, we tackled the PVC parts. We loaded them onto carts and brought them inside. It was a job that took the remainder of Day 1 and part of Day 2.

Steve couldn’t believe we were actually following through on this. He started to envision a setup with labeled bins in the upstairs storage area. That night, he volunteered to present our progress update. When he stood up in front of the group, jaws dropped.

Apparently, Steve never spoke in meetings or even said much to his coworkers. He was friendly and hardworking, but mostly kept to himself. No one remembered him speaking in front of a group during his time at the plant.

The rest of the week, the transformation continued. Steve was laughing, cracking jokes, and fully engaged in every discussion. He found his spark.

By Friday, the container had been repurposed for outdoor equipment. Signage was clear and easy to follow. All the PVC parts were inside, organized, and labeled in bins. We did a test with six people who didn’t know the space, and their average "find time" was under three minutes.

During our final report-out, Steve shared what the changes meant to him. “I don’t have to go out in the dark, in bad weather, and dig around. I know exactly where everything is now. We need to do this in other places, too.”

Steve and the rest of his team will never look at clutter or wasted time the same way again. His growth didn’t just help the team, it made a difference for him personally. And that’s what Kaizen should be all about.

Hope is a Precious Commodity

In a previous story, I described how a strategy session for a building products company led to several reliability improvement Kaizen events. This story focuses on one of those events in Mississippi.

I’m passionate about helping teams improve the reliability of their processes, using basic yet effective techniques to immediately boost the performance of their manufacturing lines. The best part is that the team can see and feel the results, and the techniques I teach are easy to learn and transferable to other lines and processes within the facility.

I flew into Memphis early on a Sunday morning, with no plant commitments until the afternoon, so I decided to tour Graceland and learn more about Elvis Presley. Although I wasn’t a fan before the visit, I gained a lot of respect for the man, his philanthropic efforts, and his impressive cars and eccentric outfits. It was quite the experience.

Afterwards, I met my contact at the plant, and we set up the meeting room for the upcoming week. He mentioned that many of the team members were hourly operators and mechanics who were skeptical about what could be achieved, and whether their voices would truly be heard. We walked through the plant, and he showed me the line we would be working on. Based on what I saw, I was confident we could make a real difference and engage the team in a way that would be meaningful to them.

On Monday morning, we kicked off the session with safety expectations, introductions, a charter review, and an overview of Lean and reliability principles. I quickly learned that most of the team members had no prior experience with Lean or Kaizen, so I had to start with the basics. This typically takes about 2 to 3 hours, and I present it using PowerPoint and activities. I know that people aren’t always excited about slides, but in my experience, some foundational understanding is necessary before we take our Gemba Walk. It used to take a full day, so I think I’ve gotten more efficient at it.

During the Gemba Walk, the team members were able to connect the reliability concepts I was teaching them to the issues on the line. If they were unsure about something, I could point out specific opportunities for improvement.

Back in the meeting room, we identified and prioritized the areas we would focus on. We broke into three sub-teams, and I worked with two mechanics and an operator to begin with the most basic tasks: centerlining and leveling the equipment.

They were shocked to see how much of the equipment was misaligned and out of level. The good news is that by the second morning, everything had been leveled and centered. The better news was that when we restarted the line, it ran better than anyone could remember.

Excitement began to fill the team, and improvements were happening across the board. By Wednesday, Jake, a mechanic who had been with the plant for over 20 years and was initially skeptical, came up to me, tapped me on the shoulder, and said, “Adam, you messed up (not exactly what he said, but you get the idea)! You gave me hope!”

I told him, “I’d like to say I’m sorry, but I’m not! Now that you know what’s possible, your job is to share it with your coworkers on the other lines!”

The rest of the week flew by, and by Friday, we had achieved something we were all proud of. The difference between this line and the others in the plant was striking. Now, the only thing shutting the line down was planned maintenance.

Jake took on the role of Area Owner, proudly holding himself and others accountable for following all of the reliability and safety requirements on the line. During a recent visit to the plant, he even demonstrated the principles of reliability to my original sponsor, the vice president of manufacturing.

Skepticism had been replaced by optimism, and the plant has already begun transferring what they learned to other lines. Before long, they should have all of their lines operating at higher reliability levels.

Simpler is Safer, Lighter, and Better

I was in Florida, working with a residential building products manufacturer on our second Kaizen event together. This time, we focused on improving materials delivery to the production lines. The tasks were challenging, physically demanding, and slow, leading to high turnover in the material handling position.

Our ultimate goal was to make the job safer and easier, reducing turnover and its associated costs while boosting employee satisfaction across the organization.

We started the week with a Lean Principles workshop, followed by a Gemba Walk to observe the current processes. The good news? There were plenty of opportunities for improvement. The better news? Together, we’d brainstorm and implement solutions to reduce waste and achieve our goals.

The team divided into three sub-teams, each focusing on a specific area:

1. Delivery and loading of granular materials to the line

2. Organization of raw materials

3. Delivery and loading of rolled materials to the line

Granular Materials Team

This team observed workers shoveling materials into buckets, carrying them up a ladder, and pouring them into bins for processing—a labor-intensive and risky process. Could it be automated?

With creativity, quick thinking, and the repurposing of existing equipment, they modified a shop vacuum to draw materials directly from containers into the bins. They added a simple sensor to stop the vacuum when the bin was full and another to alert the operator when it was time to restart.

Organization Team

Using spaghetti diagrams, they mapped operator movements during daily tasks. The diagrams revealed a chaotic system: materials were stored wherever space was available, with no clear organization.

By rearranging the workspace, they created a visual and logical storage system, reducing unnecessary movement by over 75%.

Rolled Materials Team

This group tackled three main issues:

1. Placing rolls on a carrier

2. Placing the carrier on the production line’s framework

3. Moving and removing rolls when empty

To address the first issue, they replaced the heavy, cumbersome threaded rod and collar system with a smooth rod and spring clamps, similar to those used in weightlifting. This eliminated the time-consuming process of centering the roll and screwing collars into place. It also removed the need for heavy end plates, reducing the roll’s weight by over 10 pounds.

For the second and third issues, eliminating the end plates allowed them to redesign the system. They replaced the cradles on the framework with pinned locations, enabling rolls to slide directly into place and be securely pinned. This made centering effortless and eliminated the need to lift rolls over cradle points.

The Results

By the end of the event, every team had developed solutions that made the work safer, simpler, and more efficient. Even better, the changes were cost-effective and could be easily replicated across other lines in the facility.

Early feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Employees report higher satisfaction and engagement, and we anticipate this will lead to significantly lower turnover in the material handling role.

Sometimes, the simplest solutions really are the best.

The Unexpected Benefit

It was my first Kaizen event with a new client in Florida. They make building products for the residential market. On my first visit with Brian, my sponsor, I saw many opportunities to apply Kaizen to and made my recommendations. He picked his current pain point, which was labor utilization at the end point of a multi-line operation. The goal of the Kaizen event would be to balance work across all lines and require less labor to support the operation. The people wouldn’t be sent home, they would be redeployed to other parts of the plant where overtime was being used to keep things running.

Brian was the plant manager and Jeff, our team leader, was the operations manager. We built the team with top players, as this first Kaizen event would set the tone for future efforts. We wanted a strong win. Our goals were challenging. Besides improving safety, we needed to reduce labor required by 30 percent.

Messaging to the team had to be supportive and reassuring. No one would lose their jobs by reducing labor required. I worked with Brian and Jeff to write the charter and communicate to the team in ways to strengthen their message and not make them fearful they would be blamed for labor reductions.

Our first day included a Gemba walk to a very hot production floor. It must have been 100 degrees. We watched team members do a lot of waiting and a few quality and cleaning tasks, except at one critical moment: When the pallet was full, it had to be wrapped, strapped, labeled, and removed. All while the next products were coming through the line (albeit at a very slow rate).

There were a few other tasks that took time away from the line, including a quality check every 30 minutes. This required the operator(s) to take a long part from the line, bring it to a saw, cut it to a specified length, and verify density of the product through a weighing process. Operators didn’t like this task for many reasons, including the transport of the product, time away from the line (which could happen at the moment packaging had to occur), and the use of the saw in the hot environment.

When we finished our Gemba walk, the team returned to the meeting room to brainstorm ways to improve things and simplify tasks. They prioritized three activities they thought could reduce effort and labor required: housekeeping, palletization, and product sampling and quality checks.

The housekeeping team created a cart with everything operators needed to maintain and keep the lines clean. All supplies were provided that typically would be searched for during the day, reducing time and effort for all operations.

The palletization team created locations for supplies, developed simpler palletizing methods, and created standard work that greatly reduced the time it took to wrap and palletize the product. This not only simplified things, but also reduced the stress the operators felt when finalizing each pallet of material.

The product sampling and quality check team wanted to reduce the time and effort it took to cut and weigh parts of the finished product. They experimented with relocating the saw, possibly buying a new saw or two, and buying another scale or two. All of those ideas would have helped. But then, someone asked, “Why do we need to cut the product at all?” The light bulb came on. What if they didn’t, and could weigh the finished product, without losing the critical quality information necessary for certification?

Inspired, they found an extra scale and weighed dozens of products, verifying the correlation between their results and the prior method. They met with the quality manager to align around their approach. He helped them build a plan to ensure their method could work. With the statistics confirming their method, the team had to come up with a simple way for operators to do the sampling without having to leave the line.

They mounted a scale to a cart that had height adjustments. Once they configured it properly, the cart could be brought up to the stack of products and one piece (up to 30 feet long) was slid onto the scale to get a quick reading. If too heavy for one person (identified in the standard work), they would get assistance from another operator or the section lead.

This new method turned a messy, hot, heavy, and minutes-long process into mere seconds. It was a huge win. But, even more than that, the need to destroy finished product had been eliminated, saving many hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.

Why didn’t they come up with this solution before the Kaizen, you may ask? We only know what we know. For the many years of the prior approach, no one had ever questioned it. People just did what they had been trained to do. Kaizen opened our eyes to possibilities and gave us the latitude to try new things. And because of this, we won.

Aligned Area Owners are the glue that holds things together – Part 2

I took a site visit to a new client that runs a paper mill in Oklahoma. After a solid day of meeting the leadership team and touring the site, we agreed on a series of Kaizen events, starting with two 5S events, one on the paper mill side of the plant, and the other one on the converting side. Talk about night and day! In Part I, we saw what happens when the area owner wasn’t aligned. This story is about an aligned area owner.

After the first Kaizen event, I made sure Mike, my team leader, and Steve, our sponsor, were aligned about the approach and how we would need a strong Area Owner. They assured me it wouldn’t be a problem, as two of the participants from the first Kaizen were from their area and they were excited about what happened and what would be possible for their team.

From the moment we kicked off on Monday morning, the atmosphere was positive. Our two team members from the first Kaizen event had shared their stories of success with the new team members. Although there was skepticism, everyone seemed willing to help and try anything. The spaces were huge and the clutter seemed overwhelming. Our challenge was to reduce find and retrieval time by 75% or more. This might be a stretch to achieve.

The team immediately got to work and gave their all. By the middle of the second day, there was a remarkable change in the spaces. You could actually see the floor. Major safety issues had been eliminated and the clutter wasn’t overwhelming anymore. We could see a path to the finish and were inspired to beat the results of the first team.

During the week, we had many challenges, including finding and removing a kitty “graveyard” behind one of the storage racks (it was pretty disgusting), and going beyond our scope to rearrange some personal toolboxes in the area (I typically try to stay away from telling people how to arrange their personal stuff). The team pressed on, with an amazing breakthrough in their sights.

By the end of the fourth day, the transformation was stunning. Now, it was time to test “find and retrieval time,” We took six random items and assigned them to team members to find. The goal was to get below 2 minutes (from our baseline average of 8+ minutes). Each team member found their item and returned it to us in less than a minute. But, just to show we weren’t stacking the deck in our favor, we found two “volunteers.” Our first test subject was Steve, our sponsor. He found his item in less time than the team member who had been assigned the item in the first trial. Good thing he had a sense of humor about it!

Next, we assigned someone who had never been in the area to find a part. He took the information and walked into the wrong room. Team members wanted to help him. I told them to be patient and see how things played out. Our test subject entered the correct room after about 30 seconds of searching and went to the correct cabinet and returned the item to us in just over a minute. The team was ecstatic – they had won!

Afterwards, we went back to the meeting room and two team members volunteered to be the Area Owners, one for each room. They happily built their boards, created their audits, and took pride of ownership. What a difference from the first Kaizen event.

The vibe at the report-out was bursting with energy and excitement. All who attended were astonished at the transformation of the space and the full engagement and ownership of all of our team members. They all understood what we had done would positively benefit all of the maintenance employees, their managers, and the plant customers they served. The area owners were going to see to it things stayed that way.

My first VSM for a non-manufacturing process

I applied Lean thinking exclusively to manufacturing processes for many years of my career. I wasn’t able to stretch my thinking beyond what I could see – the production of a physical product and how it impacts the customer, business, and employees. I conducted Value Stream Mapping (VSM – a strategic planning approach based on the view of the customer) sessions for many  manufacturing facilities and we were able to identify countless opportunities to significantly improve safety, productivity, quality, and customer service. I developed a reputation for my ability to engage teams and facilitate complex sessions.

I was approached by Henry, a coworker, to see if I would be willing to use my VSM approach and apply it to his marketing department. This was an intriguing request and a risky one. He had a strong Lean background and the vision to take what he learned beyond the manufacturing arena. I told him that if he was willing to take a chance, then so was I.

I took a session plan for a manufacturing VSM session and started tinkering with it to make it apply to a non-manufacturing process. It didn’t take long to realize the approach didn’t have to change much. The challenge was to help the team visualize their process in a way that would expose the waste, pain, and opportunities for improvement.

During a typical VSM, we take a Gemba walk of the process, to go and see what’s happening and what gets in the way of delivering for the customer. For the marketing department, the process wasn’t something we could easily see. How would I deal with that, I wondered. I talked it through with Henry and we bounced many ideas back and forth.

Then one of us (I’d like to say it was me, but I really don’t remember) suggested we didn’t have to physically see the process in order to visualize it. We had the experts in the room who knew what role they played in the overall process. We could have them talk us through their part, map it on a wall, and then visualize the entire process once all the experts had their say. As long as we started with the customer and worked our way back to the beginning, we could find the waste, pain points, and opportunities.

This was a brilliant revelation. Now the true test was to try it out in a real situation. And that’s what we did. The team engaged and gave their all. We visualized the current state of the marketing process and identified many wastes, pain points, and opportunities to provide an improved customer experience.

My mind opened to the possibilities. I could now apply Lean principles and Kaizen events to any process, not just manufacturing. Through the years, I learned the benefits in non-manufacturing settings can be multiples of manufacturing processes, as most groups haven’t pursued Lean thinking in these settings. There is so much opportunity it’s almost too easy to provide a winning experience for the teams I support.

I now apply VSM visualization to any process teams are trying to improve. It generates many “a-ha” moments and I often get comments like, “I didn’t realize our process was so complex. Now, by seeing it, I know what to do about it.” I recommend using Lean and VSM when you’re improving a process. You’ll be glad you did.

Never tell someone their baby’s ugly

I have been influenced by many pop-culture references over the years. During my Kaizen events, words or phrases come out of my mouth that are my attempt to make the situation relatable to the team and make them feel better about the situation they’re in and the problem they’re facing. I want them to realize it’s not the first time something bad happened in business and their problems aren’t insurmountable. I wasn’t always this way – maybe you can learn from my mistakes!

Many years ago, I was taking a Gemba walk with a team from Armstrong’s Pensacola plant. During the walk, I saw build-up, dirt, and clutter on and around the production equipment. It really bothered me and I said out loud, “we should be ashamed of the way we are maintaining and operating our equipment.” I was immediately taken off to the side by the plant Lean manager and told I shouldn’t say these things out loud. I, of course, got respectfully defensive. Not really. I said, “Look at the state of the equipment. What does it say about how we feel about our employees, by setting such a bad example of leadership expectations?”

That didn’t sit well, and he walked me to the Plant Manager’s office. We had a mostly one-sided conversation. I was told I needed to watch my words and not make people feel bad about their working conditions. It wasn’t productive and brought down the mood of the team.

To this day, I still feel the same way about difficult working conditions, but I don’t speak my feelings out loudin front of the team. Instead, I think about how to get them to see their situation as unacceptable and motivate them to do something about it.

I am reminded of one of my favorite Seinfeld episodes, “The Hamptons.” The gang (Jerry, George, Kramer, and Elaine) goes to the Hamptons to see the new baby of their mutual friends, Carol and Michael. The baby is so ugly that upon seeing him, Kramer does an exaggerated double-take and says the little girl looks like Lyndon Johnson, who wasn’t attractive. The rest of the episode is about the gang trying to not make the parents feel bad about their baby. Hilarious, but it shares a parallel with my approach to improvement teams.

I want my team to see their baby, their process, as ugly, and then do something to it to make it beautiful. The way I do it now is to show an outrageous photo from the internet (there are so many of them) of a group of people doing something obviously unsafe. When I show the photo, I have the team members describe the safety risks they see. There are obvious ones, such as don’t put a ladder on top of another ladder  on the forks of a forklift, in order to change a light bulb  thirty feet in the air.

After they laugh at the absurdity of the photo (many of these are real situations), I point out the people doing the work think what they’re doing is ok and if we were to tell them we think it’s unsafe, they would probably run us off or worse. Then I tell the story of the Seinfeld episode and make the analogy that we can’t call the baby “ugly.” Once we make that connection, I tell them by the end of the Kaizen event, we will see our original process as the “ugly baby” and our job is to turn it into something beautiful we can be proud of.

This approach has improved the alignment and engagement of the team and has kept me from making my team members feel bad about their processes. By the end of the week, they’re talking about how they made their baby a beauty to behold and they own the changes that made that transformation.

Diving into the Deep End

Armstrong World Industries was forced to open a mineral wool plant, in response to the loss of a critical supplier of this vital raw material for ceiling tile manufacture. Because of this, they relied on more outside vendors to design and build the plant than they were comfortable with. They had never spun molten stone (slag) into fibers before and therefore couldn’t use their experience to reduce the potential for errors and inefficiencies in their process.

The plant started up late, over the capital budget, and at greatly lower performance than required to meet the demand of the ceiling tile plants in the network. Things got so bad that management was shuffled, project team members were removed, and highest-level management was getting involved on a daily basis.

I was “asked” to help the plant achieve budget performance. Knowing this was a politically charged situation and that people who were involved were under intense scrutiny, I convinced my manager to let me visit the facility before committing to the work.

I spent three days at the plant, getting to know the workers, managers, and the process. What I saw was a very concerned and engaged workforce, committed managers, and a process that was absolutely horrible to run. How did we get here, I wondered. I knew I couldn’t fix the past. All I could do was try to improve the future.

There were so many problems, but we identified the biggest one that was causing significant safety, quality, and productivity risk. The molten slag (rock with metal components in it) was designed to fall into a pit and then be scooped up and delivered into a bin. If the slag hit any moisture, it would superheat the water and cause small explosions within the confines of the building. And, the pit was exposed to the outside elements, which naturally allowed moisture in. Another issue was that the front-end loader used to scoop up the molten slag barely fit between the walls of the pit. I saw evidence of damage to the walls of the plant that was less than one-year old. Someday, someone was going to hit a wall with such force that the entire structure would come down.

I spoke with my sponsors and told them incremental improvement wasn’t going to help. We had to figure out a way to keep the slag from falling into the pit in the first place, eliminating the moisture and equipment issue. They looked at me in a way that felt like, “Well, duh, but how the heck can we do that?” I suggested we run a Production Preparation Process (3P) Kaizen in order to tease out and develop breakthroughsolutions to this problem. 3P is the most challenging kaizen event I facilitate. It forces structured minds to get unstructured, go to their childhood mindset (an 8-year-old can solve any problem) and use nature’s influence for ideas. Many engineers and scientists find this difficult to participate in, but their input is essential.

A month later, we assembled a team of operators, managers, engineers, and outside vendors to take the 11-step creativity journey that happens during a one-week 3P Kaizen. We framed the problem in this way: Deliver the molten slag directly to the process without any outside intervention by equipment or the environment. Initial skepticism gave way to creativity, and by the second day, everyone was in it to win it.

By the end of the week, there were two practical solutions for the business to choose from. Both looked promising and reasonably priced, and in the months that followed, one was implemented. From then on, molten slag never hit moisture and the building walls were spared further damage.

More impressive was the feeling of engagement, teamwork, and pride  permeating the workforce. They solved the problem, participated fullyand even identified other possible Kaizen events to run in the future.

The plant is still operating and is now the benchmark in the mineral wool industry. Armstrong was able to produce more mineral wool than internally necessary and then sell the wool to other companies. The workforce is highly engaged and continues to drive improvement on a daily basis.

I was amazed by the feedback of the team, who took on a monumental task and slayed their dragon. To a person, they were positively inspired by the effort and ready to take on the next challenges.

Zigging and Zagging Along the Way

I developed a Kaizen facilitator training program for CITY Furniture. Once I realized I could train others in facilitation techniques I had developed over many years of experience, I decided to share the program with my network.

The program contains experiential learning topics covering my top facilitation principles, facilitation practices, Chartering to Win, the Wheel of Sustainability, and other topics I utilize to ensure Kaizen teams have a sustainable, winning experience. I reviewed this with a potential client who was extremely interested.

One month later, with a purchase order in hand, I modified the program to meet some specific needs, as defined in a series of meetings leading up to the training. We even developed a charter for the training, making sure it aligned with the leadership vision of the company.

Although I had previously trained 4 high-potential candidates with CITY Furniture, I was confident I could offer the training to a class of up to 8 participants. In order to give everyone the opportunity to participate in all training exercises, I recommended we expand the course from 2 ½ days to 3 ½ days.

On the first day, I covered critical foundational topics, such as:

·        The separate roles of facilitator, team leader, and team sponsor.

·        My top 12 facilitation principles

·        Top facilitation techniques with exercises for all participants

I was hoping to cover prioritization techniques, but realized things shouldn’t be rushed, so I moved it to the following day. The team was asked to provide feedback on how the day went and while most was positive, there was some discussion about other topics to cover, including a demonstration of a facilitated Gemba Walk.

I reviewed the feedback with my sponsor and he agreed the team needed a Gemba walk demonstration to help them understand the role of the facilitator during this critical Kaizen exercise. I agreed and had to determine which other topics might have to be shortened or removed. Luckily, the extra day built into the training gave me some flexibility.

On day 2, we began by discussing chartering. We had eight real Kaizen events, with sponsors waiting “on-call” for chartering discussions with the trainees. This was to occur between 10:15 and 11:30 am. At 10:30, facilitators met in-person and virtually with their sponsors and worked on charters for upcoming Kaizen events. This made the training real and compelling. All participants learned how critical it was to properly charter their upcoming events and that getting their sponsors to be clear, concise, and aligned wasn’t as easy as it appears to be.

I scheduled the facilitated Gemba walk after lunch. The trainees were given an assignment to identify improvement opportunities on a production line, while I facilitated them to stay on task and engage with the technicians working on the line. After 45 minutes, I brought them back into the meeting room to demonstrate idea gathering and prioritization, which had been delayed from the prior day.

Once this exercise was completed, I had time for one more critical topic, even though the agenda had two in the plan. I chose the one that would be easiest to retain, as it was extremely interactive.

At the end of the day, the feedback was once again mostly positive, with appreciation for the addition of the Gemba walk. There were still thoughts about topics that weren’t included in the agenda. I had to determine how to deal with those. My decision was to utilize any remaining time on the third day for “Bonus Topics” that hadn’t been covered and would be chosen by the trainees.

Day 3 went smoothly and allowed two hours for “Bonus Topics.” I was even able to get the trainees to practice the brainstorming and prioritizing techniques to choose the topics. We covered everything on the list and still had a few minutes to spare. With that, I let the team share their feedback again and then adjourn early. They were exhausted and so was I.

The feedback was very appreciative of the bonus topics and there was still concern about other things we weren’t able to cover. I realized no matter how many topics we covered, there would still be something someone wanted or needed. I had to use my best judgement around what would give them the best foundation for their next steps as Kaizen facilitators.

On day 4, we practiced a panel-discussion report out and when it was delivered to our audience, was extremely well received.

I got so much valuable feedback from the participants and sponsors that I am sure the next version will be even better. But I will also leave some time for adjusting based on the feedback of the next training class. I know it’s more important to meet their specific needs than just cover topics I think are the most important.

Surviving a Brutal Work Environment

I have experienced two mergers/joint ventures in my corporate career at Armstrong. The first one was a ceiling grid venture between Worthington Industries and Armstrong. It was extremely positive and productive and is still doing well to this day. The second one was a ceramic tile venture between Armstrong’s American Olean Tile and Dal-Tile, based out of Dallas Texas. This one didn’t go nearly as well. I learned many lessons from the Dal-Tile experience, mainly about my ability to survive.

When the “merger” was announced, I investigated other opportunities for my career, including a chance to go back to Thomasville Furniture as an assistant plant manager in Winston Salem, and an offer to do work at Armstrong’s corporate center. My recent experience with the Worthington and Armstrong joint venture was positive and I learned a lot at the beginning of the venture, so I thought I would see a similar approach to this combination of companies. Boy was I wrong.

Our Plant manager left us without saying a word. We only found out a week or so later he had gone to the Dal-Tile headquarters to prepare for the merger through a mysterious sounding voicemail. On the official first day of the merger, executives came to our plant and told the acting plant manager he had to fire five staff members by the end of the day.

I was the industrial engineering manager at the plant, and the only way I survived was that I was named as a supervisor. Dal-Tile only staffed their plants with plant managers, supervisors, and ceramics engineers. Any other staff was excess in their view.

I took the supervisory role because I was promised a job at the corporate headquarters in Dallas Texas. My favorite manager from American Olean would be my manager in Dal-Tile corporate. Even though things were challenging at the plant, I had something exciting to look forward to.

When I got to Dallas Texas, I found out we were in charge of assuring environmental, health, safety, and mining compliance across the entire company. There was a department responsible for this already. But they weren’t very helpful to the manufacturing and mining sites. The VP of operations put us in the middle of the plants and them.

We tried to work with the existing EHS and mining group, but they went to great lengths to avoid us. One time, my manager and I walked over to their offices to meet with them impromptu. Instead of meeting with us, they locked their offices and refused to talk with us. What a culture!

Another thing Dal-Tile was proud of was their firing practices. The employee manual started off with a paragraph explaining that Texas was an “at-will” state, which meant they could fire you at any moment, with or without justification. This was on the first page of the manual! I met many people who had been fired and then re-hired and then fired again. Amazing.

I knew the only way I was going to survive this brutal culture was to make myself as valuable and helpful as possible. I took every assignment, put in outrageous hours, and traveled at the drop of a hat, to support any of our twelve manufacturing facilities and multiple mining sites.

I had good relationships with the plant staff. Once they got to know me, they trusted me. They didn’t trust the EHS and mining group, that was for sure. They knew when I arrived, I would be there to help. Nothing more and nothing less.

I had many amazing experiences I would never have had in a more positive working environment. But, after 18 months, I was free to return to Armstrong (there was an agreement that we were off limits for that period of time). I made a few calls and was able to join the corporate group in Lancaster, working for the same manager I followed to Texas. He had left a month or so earlier and was able to convince his manager to hire me.

When I returned to Armstrong, I realized most people wouldn’t believe how we were treated at Dal-Tile. They never experienced a brutal corporate culture. So, I kept the stories to myself or commiserated with those few who survived their time in Dallas Texas and returned to Armstrong like me. Very few made it through unscathed. Those that did had some scars from the battles we fought but were also proud that we made it.

To this day, Dal-Tile is my example of “if you think your job is bad, check this out.” No one should be treated the way we were. Because of this, I really appreciate what I have and my determination to survive.

Living in the Moment

During my career, I have been fortunate to have worked all over the world. I was brought up as a “tourist.” Whenever I traveled with my family, we would do everything possible to see the sights and learn the history of the region we were visiting. Because of this, I naturally enjoyed my business travel and did my best to explore and experience the culture of any location I visited.

I was scheduled to assist Tim, a project manager on a critical project in Munster, Germany. We were evaluating the ramifications of expanding the plant and I was asked to utilize discrete event simulation modeling (explaining that is another story) to evaluate the capacity gain and future bottlenecks in the process.

I scheduled a two-week visit to the plant and had the weekend to explore the region. On my own, this would have been interesting, but with Tim, it turned into an all-out adventure. On Saturday, we took a cruise down the river and learned about the historical battles between the German and French armies. Castles would be destroyed, rebuilt, taken over, and then destroyed again.

On Sunday, we traveled to Belgium. Using the GPS (this was many years ago), we set out to find a museum to learn about the Battle of the Bulge. After being redirected into a few fields, we finally found the museum and learned history from a different perspective than what we had been taught in the United States.

After touring the museum, Tim mentioned that Nürburgring, a famous Formula 1 track, was in the vicinity. I knew he was a big Formula 1 fan, so I quickly agreed to go with him to the track. We got to the track and parked the rental car. Since we didn’t have tickets, Tim was happy to just look at it from the outside.

I saw people walking in and suggested we join them inside. If we acted as if we belonged there, what was the worst that could happen? We joined the crowd and since no one was checking tickets, we made our way in. We climbed into the stands and watched as cars were “practicing” on the track.

Tim was in heaven. You could see he had ticked off a “bucket list” item. I enjoyed watching him as he was deep in his element. The sounds, smells, and experience filled him with joy. There was an infield section where cars were being maintained and tested. Tim looked longingly at the action, and I suddenly knew what I had to do.

I got up and said, “Follow me.” I started down the stands and Tim came along, saying, "There’s no way they’re going to let us go there.” I said, “What are they going to do, kick us out of the country?” Seemed unlikely, so we headed down and walked onto the infield, looking like we belonged there.

We spent the next two hours looking at cars and talking with drivers and mechanics. It was an amazing experience for Tim and me. I just enjoyed seeing Tim in his element, talking about cars, racing, and any other topics that I probably didn’t understand.

There’s a lot of similarities to what I do today as a consultant and my adventure with Tim. I venture out into the unknown, acting like I belong. I definitely enjoy living in the moment with my Kaizen teams and feeling pride when they win.

Leadership Commitment in a Most Challenging Situation

Last year, Dave, a network connection, reached out to me to see if I could help him in his continuous improvement journey. His wife had worked with me at Armstrong, and one evening he was talking with her about some of his frustrations at work. She said, “If you want to get the right help, call Adam. He is tenacious and won’t let you or your team fail.”

Dave invited me to his factory, which was quite large and had several furnaces that smelted and poured molten metal into ingots for high value customers. They had a problem with tools and equipment going missing, which led to significant productivity losses. He wanted to reinitiate and strengthen their 5S program. I knew I could help, and wrote a proposal for the work, which was approved quickly.

We scheduled the Kaizen event for eight weeks from my initial visit. This would allow Dave to prepare leadership and gather the proper team for the Kaizen. We had already chartered and scoped the event to cover one of the furnaces. Our idea was that our improvements could be replicated to the other furnaces in the facility.

In the meantime, I spent a day at the facility getting required safety training and preparing Dave for the event. We picked a conference room and identified the supplies necessary during the week.

Three days before the Kaizen event, Dave called to tell me he had contracted COVID. I asked him if he wanted to postpone the Kaizen. He told me no and if I could pick up the supplies from his home (in his driveway), one of the team members would fill in as team leader until he could participate at the facility. He would use Zoom to attend and participate on the first day of the Kaizen. His five-day isolation period would then end, and he could attend in person on the second day, but would have to wear a mask.

I wasn’t sure what to make of this. All my Kaizen events (up to that time) were in-person, and I didn’t really know how engaged Dave could be attending virtually. But I was willing to give it a try and make the best of it.

On the Sunday before kick-off, I met Lisa, who was going to fill in for Dave as team leader. She helped me prepare the meeting room. We talked about how we could engage all team members, including Dave on the first day of the Kaizen. We set up a laptop for Dave that we could point toward the team and the screen, so that he could engage with the team and keep up with the discussions. Luckily, he and I had spent time in the workspace, so he had a list of ideas to share during that portion of the Kaizen.

At kick-off on Monday, we introduced everyone and shared Dave’s story and said we were going to make the best of a difficult situation. For Dave’s part, he stayed on Zoom the entire time, engaging and speaking with the group at appropriate moments. When we went out to the facility floor, Dave waited for us to text him that we were returning to the meeting room. The team had many ideas and Dave was able to share his as well. When we prioritized the many ideas into a vital few, Dave was able to participate as if he were in the room. We took the laptop over to the list of ideas and Lisa voted on Dave’s behalf.

Now it was time to work on the high priority projects. Dave couldn’t really do that, so he signed off until we met to wrap up for the day. He listened intently to the team’s progress and gave them encouragement and told them he couldn’t wait to come in the next day and help them in their work.

The second day, Dave showed up with a facemask and kept his distance from the team members. He jumped on one of the project teams and was able to participate in the improvement work. Throughout the week, the team felt more comfortable letting Dave engage in the work and by the end of the week, he was able to help complete many critical tasks.

At the end of the week, the team had made significant improvements to their furnace area. We did a quick estimate on the impact on productivity and changeovers and felt we had made a huge impact on both. Time would tell, of course. For his part, Dave earned the respect of the team and had his first true win in his position as Continuous Improvement Manager. I was impressed by his dedication and commitment and was thankful we didn’t have to postpone or cancel this Kaizen event. I also learned it was possible to engage remote team members in Kaizen events.

A Picture is Worth More than a Thousand Words – It’s Priceless

Earlier this year, I received an email from someone I never met, asking about my approach to 5S – organizing a workspace to improve safety and productivity. He heard about me from another location in his company, who I helped six months earlier. Later that week, we were in a Zoom meeting, and he invited me to his factory in Oregon to see if I could help jump-start their 5S efforts.

Three weeks later, I was on a plane, heading to the west coast. I arrived early in the afternoon and met with Ben, my sponsor. We took a tour of the factory and strategized about my approach with the leadership team the next day. I saw many places where 5S and other Lean tools could help them out. People in the factory were engaged and appeared ready to take a first step on their continuous improvement journey.

That evening at dinner, Ben told me about past continuous improvement efforts. There weren’t many success stories shared. I was told one consultant had visited and said he couldn’t help them. I couldn’t understand how that was possible.

The next morning, Ben and I walked around the factory again. It helped ground me and remind me of the complexity of their processes. A little later, I attended the morning leadership walk around the factory. Although there were a dozen staff members attending, only one or two were engaged at any time. I took a risk and gave Roy, the facility manager, some feedback about how he might engage his staff more effectively. He took my feedback in stride (he didn’t kick me out of the plant, so that was a good sign).

After the leadership walk, Ben and I talked about what I had seen, and we prepared for the leadership review at lunch. We created a list of the top three areas that could use my help. There were unlimited opportunities for improvement at the facility.

At lunch, we crammed into a small conference room. There may have been a dozen people seated around a table designed for six. I introduced myself and thanked them for giving me the opportunity to visit and learn about their processes. I spoke about what I saw and where I thought I could help. I wasn’t getting much engagement from the leadership team and realized my words weren’t connecting with them. With a less than successful history of continuous improvement efforts at their factory, they were naturally skeptical.

That’s when it hit me – talk about the successful Kaizen event from their sister facility. I started describing the work I did with the team. We were able to reduce a critical changeover by many hours, leading to substantial savings for the company. The leadership team started asking some questions. Then, I asked Ben if he had the report out from the Kaizen. He projected it on the screen. Now the questions were flowing. People were amazed at the “before” and “after” photos. How did we do this? Is it still working? How might we apply a similar approach locally?

Next, Roy asked where I would start. I reviewed the three areas Ben and I had prioritized. Roy said those were good choices, but he preferred to start at the beginning of the process, where quality would be most affected. I was happy to oblige, as it was much more important to gain alignment than to worry about where to start. Ben agreed and now we were talking about when we could kick-off the first Kaizen event.

I said I would charter the event with Ben, and then we could review it for approval. From there, I would write a proposal and then, once receiving a purchase order, the work could begin. I normally like to think for 24 hours before writing my proposal. But speed was critical. After chartering with Ben, I found a quiet office to write my proposal for the Kaizen. Then, Ben and I met with Roy and we were met with enthusiastic approval. I left the facility with a purchase order. The following month, I ran their first “successful” Kaizen event. But that’s another story for another day.

Perfection Isn’t Always a Good Idea

In the 1980’s, Thomasville Furniture was the market leader in high-end furniture. They were extremely focused on process improvement in all areas of the business. I worked on a staff of industrial engineers. Each of us supported one or more of the many manufacturing facilities. We were tasked with finding ways to improve safety, quality, productivity, and customer service.

One of my colleagues worked at the plant that made tables and chairs. They took great pride in the finish of their tabletops. To achieve the desired look, many workers used powered sanding and rubbing devices. It was an extremely labor-intensive process. We had many muscle strains as a result from all the hand sanding and rubbing to get the desired look.

We heard about companies using robots to reduce labor intensity and safety risk. It seemed like an opportunity for us. If we could figure out how to get robots to sand and rub each tabletop, we could realize significant labor cost reduction and eliminate one of our top safety risks.

My colleague, Frank, connected with a robot supplier who brought in some of his robots for a 30-day “test drive.” The first few weeks were spent teaching the robots how to find the surface and perimeter of the table, apply the proper pressure, and cover the entire surface of the table consistently.

Eventually, they were able to achieve their objectives. The robot was able to sand and achieve a rubbed finish on the tabletops, without human intervention. The tabletops looked great. We were ready to roll out robots to take over the sanding and rubbing process.

Before fully committing to the robots, they decided to show the results to a focus group, to get their reactions to the results. The feedback was surprising. Initially, the group loved the finish and look of the tables. In fact, they said the finish was better than anything they had ever seen. But, after more review and conversation, there was something that bothered them. A series of questions drew out the issue: the tops were too perfect. There was no variation across the surface. We had lost the “handmade” look and feel of the furniture. Instead, the lack of variation made the tables look mechanically made, plastic, or unreal.

We couldn’t give up the thing that made Thomasville Furniture a market leader. Frank and his team went back to the robot vendor to see if he could program variability into the process. After many attempts, they gave up. The technology at the time wouldn’t allow the robots to randomize the pressures applied across the tabletops.

The team removed the robots and returned to the time-tested approach to hand sand and finish tables. Over time, robot technology improved, but it was never given another chance at Thomasville Furniture. Instead, we worked on ways to simplify and reduce the safety risk of hand finishing tables.