Pick It Up and Move It

I was an early Lean practitioner at Armstrong World Industries. I’d spend a week with a production and maintenance team on a production line, helping them implement improvements to safety, quality, productivity, and customer service. At the end of the week, we’d give a tour of our changes. Because of our numerous successes, I was requested to help many of our manufacturing sites around the world.

Macon Georgia was our largest ceiling tile manufacturing plant, with the capability to produce ½ billion square feet of ceiling tile annually. I was invited to help them with a critical production problem. They were experiencing a high rate of jams. When a jam occurs, operators have to clear material off the line as fast as possible, or further downtime and damage will occur. This creates safety and quality risk. The plant manager told me they had an average of 9 jams on the line every day. He wanted my help to reduce them to zero.

I told him I would need a very capable and qualified team of operators, mechanics, and supervisors. I also needed free reign to make any changes we saw fit, without waiting for approval. He agreed and organized a “Dream Team” for me.

On the first day of our Kaizen event, we toured the line, looking for the major locations where jams were occurring. The highest jam location was at the Flipper-Stacker and the conveyer leading up to it. This equipment looked like a Ferris Wheel. It flipped every other tile, to stack them face to face and back-to-back. Then, after being flipped, they traveled to a back stop, which lined up the tile edges and dropped them into a stacking device.

We noticed the tiles were entering the flipper portion on an angle. The conveyers leading up to the flipper were trying to straighten the tiles, but because there wasn’t much room between the flipper and the prior inspection station, the tiles couldn’t straighten out. How were we going to deal with that? Then, I asked, “What would it take to move the inspection station?” The team looked at me as if I had come from another planet. Someone asked, “How can we move the inspection station? There are conveyers, lighting, power, and other critical equipment that would have to be moved.” I said, “If we want to reduce jams to zero, we’ll have to.”

We started planning the mechanical and electrical work that would have to be accomplished to safely move the inspection station the 30 feet away from the flipper. We knew we could move the mechanical portion during the day, but we couldn’t get the overhead lights moved until the following day. The inspectors needed proper lighting to identify defects on the face of the tiles that went by at a rapid rate. While the team started dismantling the inspection station, I went to the store to buy temporary lights.

When I returned, we were ready to remove conveyers and relocate the inspection station. The day shift crew helped us and believed in what we were doing. We set up the temporary lights and reconnected all components of the line. The line started back up and we adjusted the conveyer rollers and guides. The tiles were now entering the flipper more squarely. After a few hours, we had the line running better than it had in the past. But we still didn’t have the permanent lights installed.

After the team went home, I stayed to talk with the evening crew. They had no idea what we had done, so I knew I needed to explain our changes and our thinking. And tell them about the lighting that would be relocated the next day.

We met in a space that was designed for six people. There must have been fourteen crew members in the room and they didn’t look happy. I explained what we had done and why we did it. After a few minutes of discussion, one of the crew said, “You could sell me a car. I truly believe you did what you did for the right reasons.” Then, he smiled and gave me a pat on the back. I thanked everyone for being patient with us and encouraged them to hang in there until the permanent lights were relocated.

The next morning, I arrived at the plant early and was told the line had been running very well overnight. This was great news. Now, we had to get the electricians to move the lights in a way that wouldn’t disrupt the production line. They planned out their work and were able to move everything without causing much downtime. We continued to tweak the line and by the end of the day, we had tiles well-spaced and squarely entering the flipper. This was a major breakthrough, but we weren’t done. Now we had to improve the performance of the stacker. That story could stand on its own, but suffice it to say we fabricated some new brackets and the tiles stopped jamming there too.

At the end of the day, I met with the evening crew again to show them what we had done. The crew member who patted me on the back gave me a bear hug and told me he appreciated I kept my word.

By the end of the week, we made many other improvements and welded everything in place, so the crew wouldn’t have to worry about jams at the flipper and stacker again. We didn’t get to zero jams, but we got pretty close. We also proved it sometimes takes drastic measures to accomplish a goal. But, with proper support and resources, you can accomplish almost anything.

Who Are We Designing This for?

I visited an engineered wood flooring plant in Kentucky. They were losing millions of dollars annually due to poor scrap performance. After meeting with the Plant Manager and his leadership team, we took a Gemba walk to assess the current situation.

The plant was fairly well organized and clean. Everyone was following the safety rules and were intent on keeping themselves safe. How did I know this? I saw Visible Evidence of the Leadership Commitment to safety. There was signage that was aligned with actions of the leaders and all employees.

I noticed a huge amount of scrap materials in the plant. Pallets of flooring boards were lying around and it seemed like more scrap was being made by the minute. I asked how production and scrap information was tracked and was directed to a large white board mounted to the outer wall of an office.

The board displayed information on the products being produced and the hourly output of the various production lines. There was no display of scrap or quality information. I wanted to understand how the board was used. I asked the team to wait by the board until someone interacted with it.

Ten minutes later, a production operator walked up to the board with paper in her hand. She looked rushed and stressed. She left her line while it was running, walked twenty yards, and transferred information from the paper to the board. She acknowledged us and then rushed back to her line.

As we walked around the rest of the factory, I noticed there were no production boards at any of the lines. Everyone had to walk away from what they were doing and go to the main production board to enter information on an hourly basis. Sometimes, they were so busy they didn’t update information. The leadership team lamented that fact and wondered what could be done about it.

I shared these suggestions with the team:

·        Place the information in a convenient spot to the person who maintains and uses it.

·        Train the leadership team to go to the information, rather than making it come to them.

·        Engage with the person doing the work in their own space and in their own time.

The team was intrigued and thought it might be helpful to incorporate these ideas and other principles of Visible Evidence into a Kaizen event designed to improve quality and scrap performance. A month later we kicked off the Kaizen.

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.

Beer is the Answer

In 1991, I was offered a position as a shift supervisor at a ceiling grid plant in Franklin Park Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.  I received supervisor training the prior year and this was my first opportunity to use what I learned in the real world.  From my second-floor office, I was able to see both ends of the plant, including the eleven operating lines and the warehouse.  What immediately struck me was the lack of focus on the quality of the product we were producing.

In my early days as a supervisor, I was extremely interested in helping my crew make improvements to their processes.  It was challenging, as I had very little experience in their industry and they knew that.  I had to find a way to connect with my team and build trust with them.  It turns out that beer was an easy way to make this connection.

High Waste, Low Morale

Ceiling grid is made from coil steel, which is roll-formed into shape and cut into bars of varying lengths.  These bars were then fed into a punch press, which cut the bars to final length and put holes and end details on them.  On some of the lines, it seemed like more bars of grid were going into scrap carts than were going into the boxes to be shipped to our customers.   This scrap material would be sent to a metal recycler, who gave us pennies on the dollar for these precious bars.  We were losing money and I wanted to help stop our losses.

I met with my crew and discussed our high scrap rate.  They said the process was to blame and there was very little they could do about it.  When I talked about the high percentage of scrap we were producing, they seemed unimpressed with the number but said they would try to reduce that percentage as best they could.

A few weeks went by and our scrap losses weren’t getting any better.  I met with my crew again and they said they were doing their best, but didn’t know what they could do to get the scrap rate down.  Frustrated, I took some time to talk with my plant manager to see if he had any ideas I could use.

I found out the scrap rate was quite high during his time there, but in years prior to his arrival the scrap rate was significantly below current levels.  What had changed, I wondered?  I decided to talk to one of our technical resources, who had been a supervisor in the plant for many years before I arrived.

He told me people used to care about quality more when he was a supervisor.  There was stability in the plant for many years, so people worked as a team and were focused on doing their best together.  These days, there was a lot of new people managing the plant (including me) and that made it difficult to build a bond with the crews.

Giving Scrap a Real Value

As I thought about this more, I realized I needed to improve the situation, but didn’t have years to do so.  I had to come up with something meaningful to make a connection with the crew.  One day, as I was shopping with my wife, I noticed the grocery store sold beer along with food.  This was something I hadn’t seen growing up in Maryland.  As I looked at the prices of the beer, I realized I had an opportunity to make a connection with my crew.  I was now ready for my next crew meeting!

I started off the meeting telling my crew I truly didn’t understand why scrap occurs and because of that, I couldn’t help them reduce it.  But, through the inspiration of beer, I now knew how to help them.  “You see,” I started, “a two-foot bar of ceiling grid has the same value as a can of beer.”  They looked at me kind of strange and one of them let out a laugh.  “A four-foot bar of grid is worth two cans of beer, and a twelve-foot bar equals a six-pack.  If we save enough grid from the scrap carts, we could save the company enough money to have an open bar at the next company party!”  The crew loosened up and started talking about ways they could save beer for the company.

The next few days, I reminded the crew how much beer was sitting in the scrap carts on each line.  Instead of percentages, we were now talking about something of value and meaning for them.  I didn’t realize how much it meant until one day, my top setup technician came to my office to tell me he had saved a keg of beer for the company on his last setup.  He was able to get the setup right on the first try.  His scrap cart was almost empty!

Over the next few months, our scrap rate came down dramatically, and settled to 75% below the historical average.  The experienced technical resource was amazed at how low our scrap rate was and even admitted it hadn’t been that low when he was the supervisor.  I told him he had inspired me to come up with something that would get the attention and make a connection with the crew.  In a town like Chicago, beer was the answer!

Shine a Light on the Problem

The Corporate Quality Manager of a suspended ceiling manufacturer had a problem. When he wanted to check for defects on ceiling tiles, he had them shipped from the manufacturing plant and installed in ceiling grid in the corporate testing facility. This 12’ x 24’ ceiling grid configuration was adjacent to a large bank of windows. He then waited for the weather to cooperate. You see, he wanted the proper angle of sunlight to shine across the face of the tiles, and depending on the time of year and weather conditions, he might have to wait weeks to assess the quality of the tiles. The windows were often obstructed with testing materials, which made access and viewing even more difficult.

The ceiling manufacturer was about to introduce a large quantity of new products and the installation setup would not be sufficient to check all the new products’ quality prior to product launch. A change had to be made. As Lean Champion for the company, my help was enlisted to solve the problem. After some initial discussions and a tour of the area, the Quality Manager and I agreed we needed to think differently about the setup and process of quality testing. We decided to use a Kaizen event to optimize the design of the required testing space.

We assembled a team of testing technicians, quality technicians, scientists, and marketing representatives to think through the testing requirements and systems to install. We also identified a space to use for the new quality testing area. After a few weeks of touring various buildings and negotiating for space, we chose two adjoining 20’ x 50’ spaces on the ground floor of the testing facility. These spaces were filled with equipment and materials from many years of testing and development. We were sure we would be able to remove most of it and re-purpose the space for the benefit of the company. Although these spaces were large, they had no windows to the outside, so we would have to figure out another way to provide proper lighting to the face of the ceiling tiles.

On the first day of the Kaizen, we reviewed Lean principles and spent extra time on 5S. Next, we took the team on a walk of the current testing area and then to the identified spaces. Their first reaction was surprise and disappointment. They thought we should use the existing space by the outside window and reorganize materials and tools.

Our goal was to be able to assess tiles for quality at any time, regardless of the weather. This goal forced us to rule out the current location for testing. In the new space, the clutter got in the way of the team’s vision of what was possible. So, we did the first S, “Sort”. During Sort, the team removed 90 percent of what was in the space. Some equipment, which had been purchased to provide critical data in years past, was no longer useful, and was removed. The team contacted as many of the equipment owners as possible, to ensure we wouldn’t throw out anything critical. Everything would be removed from the space, no matter what.

Once we cleared out the space, we developed our concept for testing. The idea was to create a number of testing spaces, or pods, in which to install and check various types of ceiling tiles. These tiles needed to be at least seven feet off of the floor, so that they could be observed from below as well as from the side, using some form of raking light. The light had to go across the painted face of the tile, so defects and inconsistencies would be readily apparent. The team agreed the size of each pod should be 12’ x 12’. This allowed us to create three pods in each 20’ x 50’ space, for a total of six. We now had three times the capacity of the existing testing space. But, how were we going to create the necessary lighting?

The first thing we had to do was to identify the intensity and angle of light we needed. Fortunately, we were able to do so on the second day of the Kaizen, as the sun came out and provided the necessary lighting required in the existing testing space. Using light meters and the experience of the team, we identified the proper number of lumens (intensity) and optimal angle for the light in the pods.

The next step was to build the ceiling grid configurations in the pods. We put together three installations of ceiling grid in one of the two rooms. Each was squared up and then ceiling tiles were installed. We made sure we had enough space on all sides of the installations, so we could view the tiles from any angle, without obstruction.

Now it was time to go shopping. We purchased enough lights for one of the pods, before committing to all six. We bought a number of different fluorescent lighting configurations (and kept the receipts) to allow us to test and identify the optimal configuration.

On the morning of the third day, we performed our first lighting tests in one of the pods. A technician climbed a scaffold and held one of the lights up to the ceiling tile installation. The team wasn’t pleased. They asked him to move the light a little further away and a little higher. Things started to look better. Then, after a slight adjustment in location and height, they felt they were getting the type of lighting required. Using light meters, they verified a consistent result compared with the natural light measured on day two. The team collected several measurements and developed plans to assemble permanent lighting fixtures for all pods.

Later in the day, the first lighting fixture was installed and the team verified their results. Everything was as expected. Then the team realized an opportunity to provide the same lighting at a 90-degree angle to the original light fixture. They would just need to install an additional fixture and connect it at right angles to the original fixture. This gave them additional inspection capability they never had before.

On the fourth day, the first pod was complete and plans were made to install the same lighting in the other five pods and to hard-wire everything to make it as safe and efficient as possible. Now the team had a new problem. With the extreme increase in productivity and complete elimination of wait time to test, everyone would want to use the pods at the same time.

The solution was to designate an owner for the area and a system to ensure the area was well-managed and organized. To reserve the use of a testing pod, a white board was installed to make reservations visible, by pod. If someone used a pod longer than the requested time, the area owner would follow-up and hold them accountable to honor their commitments.

At the report out, the team proudly reported on their results. They were able to take a process that used to take weeks and reduced it down to minutes. They also increased the capacity of the area by a factor of three. Anyone could now use the pods safely and productively and testing would no longer slow down any new product development or testing project. In the next six weeks, all lights and wiring were installed, and the space has been in continuous use for years.

The team learned how to shine a light on the problem and solve it creatively.

Breaking Through - The Edge

In 2005, I was asked to help a team reduce the changeover time of a painting operation at a ceiling tile manufacturing plant in Oregon. The approach I used was SMED – Single Minute Exchange of Die. The goal was to reduce the existing changeover time by 50% or more, while improving the safety of the work.

After training the team, we took a walk on the factory floor to observe a changeover in progress and see if we could generate any improvement ideas. As with most SMED events, we saw a ton of improvement opportunities related to the existing changeover and the team was excited they would be able to help everyone in the process.

Towards the end of the walk, we stopped at the quality testing station and saw something that didn’t look right to us. The Quality Technician was using a box knife to cut four 2-foot edges of the ceiling tile off by hand. It looked difficult, unsafe, and extremely inefficient. When we asked her more about it, she told us she was required to measure the color of the face and edges of the ceiling tiles. The only way to get the colorimeter to read the edge of the ceiling tile was to make these cuts, allowing the tester to be placed directly on the edges. She also told us it made her wrists hurt. On a break, I verified with plant leadership they were also very concerned about this requirement. It was their number one safety concern in the facility and a number of engineers had studied the issue with no practical solution.

Following the walk, the team went back to their meeting room and listed all of the improvement ideas they had. They then prioritized the ones they wanted to work on to reduce changeover time. During the next two days, many of the highest priority ideas were implemented and the team was extremely excited about the improvements they were able to make.

At a break, a mechanic on the team came up to me and asked if it would be ok for him to work on something outside of the prioritized list of improvements the team had identified. I could tell something was bothering him, so I asked him to tell me more about what he was thinking. “Adam, I can’t get that edge cutting process out of my mind. It’s not right that we are putting our people at risk. I think I have a solution, and if you give me an hour to work on it, I can come right back to the team to help out with the other efforts.”

Kaizen is a team sport, and the team needs to be aligned around what everyone is doing. I asked the team what they thought. They enthusiastically supported the mechanic’s efforts. So much so that one of the operators volunteered to help him work on his idea. We couldn’t wait to see what they would come up with.

About an hour and half later, both team members came back with grins a mile wide. They brought a contraption that looked like a standard vise with a two-foot wide angle iron attached to each jaw. Curious, we stopped our other work to watch a demonstration of their invention. They put a 2-foot ceiling tile into the vise vertically, with the edge of the tile in the jaws and closed the vise carefully. Then, with a swift tap, the ceiling tile broke off cleanly at the edge, across the entire 2-foot length. We were stunned.  One of our team members stepped up and tried the next of the four edges, and it broke off just as cleanly. One by one, we all tried it and saw how quick and easy it was to break off the edges. Now, we gave it the ultimate test – we brought it to the Quality Technician and showed her how to use it. She easily broke off the edge and immediately gave the mechanic a hug in a show of gratitude.  It was probably the only hug the mechanic ever got at the plant!

We were so proud, but knew we had to finish our other work and gain alignment from plant leadership that our new method would meet the quality testing requirements. During the rest of the Kaizen, we implemented as many of our improvement ideas as possible, then created an overall changeover procedure that we verified, practiced, and used to train the rest of the operators on the line. The changeover time had been reduced significantly, but we wouldn’t feel like we had won until we implemented the new edge breaking process. So, we decided to build a final report to win over the plant leadership.

We invited plant leadership to see the new changeover procedure, which the team demonstrated for them. Some of the leadership team even participated, to see for themselves how much easier and safer it had become.  They were extremely pleased, but we had saved the best for last.

Our creative mechanic invited the Quality Technician to join him in front of the group of plant leaders. Then, another team member brought out the vise and handed a ceiling tile to the Quality Technician. She put it in the vise, gave it a tap, and the edge broke right off, as clean as could be.  In my life, I have never seen a collective group of people’s jaws drop at the same time, but it happened right then. After they got over their initial shock, the Operations Manager said, “Let me try that.” He did, and got the same result.

Everyone wanted a turn, and when it was over, the Safety Manager said, “This has been our number one safety risk. We have spent over 6 months trying to solve it the conventional way and haven’t been able to do so. Your team worked together and solved it so quickly. We need more teams to help us solve our problems in this way. Thank you!”  Then, she gave the mechanic the second hug he had ever received in the plant. After blushing, he admitted to the group that in all of his years working at the plant, he had never done anything as impactful as this. He also reminded everyone that this was a prototype, so there may be an improved way of doing the work.  Many years later, the original vise was being used in the plant without a complaint.