On May 15, 2018, I registered Process Improvement Partners LLC as an official business. Since then, I have had so many adventures, made lots of mistakes, and hopefully learned from many of them!
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A good friend of mine asked me to speak at his Virtual Lean Summit. I was scheduled to present on the Wheel of Sustainability on Thursday. When I looked at the agenda for the week, I found several presentations I wanted to attend. One stood out to me as a must – the Tuesday presentation by the President of a large furniture retailer in South Central Florida.
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During my time living on the west coast, I wanted to give back to the community. Many of the staff at the St. Helens, Oregon plant participated in some way or another with the United Way of Columbia County. I was intrigued. I had participated in many United Way Days of Caring during my time in Pennsylvania.
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Four years into the Lean Transformation at Armstrong World Industries, we started expanding Lean beyond our manufacturing operations. Forward-thinking leaders came up with an idea to help us better understand the customer experience from the inside. That is, we would conduct a “Customer Experience” Value Stream Mapping event, with the Gemba being the place where the customer interacted with our ceiling products the most – at their job site(s).
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I spent the early part of my career working at Thomasville Furniture as an Industrial Engineer. I was responsible for supporting our veneer plant. One of the most valuable lessons I learned from my time in this role was a stark example of never, ever overlooking the simple or the obvious – in this case a single phone call could have saved 18 months of work from being. Here’s the story.
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I was the Business Team Manager for a vinyl flooring manufacturer in Lancaster PA. The business I was responsible for had been in a death spiral for many years. Consumer tastes had shifted, investments in the business had shrunk, and new product introductions were rare. The day I arrived at the plant I noticed a hand-made sign declaring the plant would be shut down in the next month or two. This was not very encouraging.
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In 2014, I attended the Shingo Conference in Ohio. This was my first opportunity to network with and learn from continuous improvement practitioners and leaders from all over the world. I was determined to get as much learning and experience as possible.
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I reported to the Vice President of Global Technology for a ceiling tile company as Lean Champion. During my tenure, we kicked off our Lean transformation and established four Value Streams: Innovation (R&D), New Product Development, Capital Engineering, and Business and Operations Support. Each Value Stream Director guided efforts to deliver value to the internal and external customers who relied on their critical results.
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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.
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In 2011, I was asked to assist a team in Pensacola, FL who wanted to improve processes in their distribution center. We were given four days to accomplish our task – reduce shipping damage by 50%. This was a tall order, but the team was up for the challenge.
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One of the benefits of being in business for yourself is to decide what’s most important to you and then prioritize your time to let you do what you are most passionate about.
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An engineered flooring plant in Kentucky was losing money. They knew their product yields were deteriorating and didn’t know what to do about it. Process Improvement Partners was invited for a site visit. After reviewing performance and discussing the issues with plant leaders in a meeting room, we took a Gemba Walk to see what was actually happening.
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We are all customers. We want what we want, when we want it, at the level of quality we expect, in the proper quantity. We are the final say as to whether a business will thrive, survive, flounder, or die. The business must deliver to our expectations, or we will not continue to purchase products or services that they offer.
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