Improving Safety from the Perspective of our Customers

Armstrong World Industries has a strong safety culture and is relentless in driving to zero injuries globally. Early on in the journey to zero, our factories focused on compliance, holding people accountable to wear their safety glasses, safety shoes, and follow various protocols. That took safety to a certain level, but the company performance plateaued. How could we get to the next level of leadership?

Firm in our Convictions

I was promoted to business unit manager in a union facility for Armstrong World Industries. The relationship between management and the hourly employees had been strained for many years. It was so bad that on my first day on the job, there was a sign that said, “the plant will be closing in two months.” I wondered why they had so little faith in me. The shop steward told me, “Adam, even if we could trust you, we didn’t trust the person before you and won’t trust the person after you.” It was like they had given up on any form of leadership and stability.

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.

Aligned Area Owners are the glue that holds things together – Part 1

I took a site visit to a new client that runs a paper mill in Oklahoma. After a full day of meeting the leadership team and touring the factory, we agreed to a series of Kaizen events, starting with two 5S events, one in the paper mill building, and the other one in the converting building. Talk about night and day! Here’s the first story about what happens when the area owner wasn’t aligned. (And to learn about the experience when the area owner is aligned, be sure to read Part II.)

Don’t be afraid to ask for help

I had many stops in my corporate career. I worked in furniture, ceiling grid, ceiling tile, ceramic tile, and vinyl flooring all over the world. My most challenging assignment was working for Dal-Tile in Dallas Texas. I was the environmental, health, safety, mining, and industrial engineering liaison for the twelve manufacturing locations around the country.

You can’t help people if you don’t build trust

Right before the pandemic, I was asked to conduct a site assessment by one of my clients. The twist here is that it wasn’t for one of their own plants. Rather, they wanted me to assist one of their key suppliers, who was a co-packer (someone who packages and labels products for its clients and sometimes manufactures products using the clients’ brand). I should have seen the warning signs sooner.

Experimenting in Europe

I was asked to co-facilitate a regional cost-reduction session with my Armstrong mentor, Fred, in Europe. He had facilitated many of these sessions over the years with great success. I was excited for the opportunity to work with him and tour around countries I wasn’t familiar with.

Good Things Can Come from a Tough Situation

My first supervisory assignment was at a ceiling grid factory in Franklin Park Illinois. We had eleven operating lines at one end of the plant and a distribution center at the other end. It wasn’t unusual to produce grid in the morning and ship it out the same day. Sometimes, due to inefficiencies, we produced finished goods for customers whose trucks were waiting to be loaded on our shipping docks.

The Five Whys

The Five Whys is a method that can be used to understand why a change isn’t being followed. It helps you get to the root cause of any resistance or problem you observe. If you find someone doing something in a non-standard manner, ask why until you get to their motivation for doing it differently. It may take five or more whys. It could take less. Here’s a sample conversation:

We Won the Battle but Lost the War

During my corporate career, we identified a critical gap in our safety training system. There wasn’t a good way to ensure traveling engineers, scientists, and technicians were compliant for annual safety training requirements. We had to get everyone immediately compliant and then develop a system for annual recertification.

Lean in Action

I was Lean Champion for the Global Technology group at a ceiling tile manufacturer for six years. During that time, I was responsible to train all new employees in Lean principles and techniques as they joined our group. The goal of this training was to help them understand what we were doing and how we applied Lean to our work. My aim was to generate interest and engagement around Lean. In the early years, things didn’t always go the way I expected.

Attention to Detail

In 2007, I moved my family across country to take a new role as Production Manager for a ceiling tile plant in Oregon. The plant had a strong team-based culture. People genuinely wanted to help each other work in as safe and productive manner as possible. It wasn’t unusual to see the Plant Manager on the factory floor, assisting the technicians with their work or helping them stay safe.

A Wakeup Call

In 2001, I was the Business Unit Manager at a Vinyl Flooring Plant in Pennsylvania. Responsible for the one of four business units on site, I had a unionized workforce of 160 employees, three supervisors, and eight technical staff. My job was to turn the shrinking business around and keep my employees safe and productive.

Let’s See How Things Go

During my tenure as Production Manager at a ceiling tile plant in Oregon, I implemented strict rules around changeovers: No one is allowed in the breakroom during a changeover without Team Manager approval; Everyone is available to help during the changeover; Everyone is at their stations when the line is ready to start up; One Best Way changeover procedures are followed to the letter. No deviations. The procedures were developed by the technicians. There was no reason not to follow them.

Best Event Ever

I was the Lean Champion for Armstrong World Industries for six years. My responsibility was to guide the organization to a continuous improvement mindset in all of their activities. I had no direct reports and reported to the Executive Vice President of Global Technology. When we kicked off our Lean transformation, most in the organization felt we were implementing the “flavor of the week” and weren’t ready to commit to changing their habits.

Gemba Walks

For those unfamiliar with the term, Gemba means “the real place, the place where the work is done.” A Gemba walk therefore means that you are going to walk through the real place and assess the work being done there. I tweak it a bit to mean, “assess the health of the operating system.” This sounds like an audit, and it is. For many companies, the idea of the Gemba walk is to take people out of their offices and walk through the process with their people. It’s not always the most comfortable thing for people to do. If done well, it can be extremely impactful. If not done well, it becomes a big waste of time.

The Gift of Kaizen

It was shortly after Thanksgiving, late one afternoon on a cold day in November. I had just gotten home from what I thought was my last business trip of the year. I was tired and wrung out from all the travel, not to mention all of the hubbub of gearing up for the holiday season with friends and family, dinners and parties, and you get the idea. I had just sat down in my favorite comfy chair and put my feet up and closed my eyes when a call came in to the Process Improvement Partners Hotline. The voice was deep, full of life, and familiar. “Adam!“ It wasn’t a question, it was a statement. It was as if he knew me and somehow, I knew him. I had spoken with him before, but I couldn’t put my finger on when and where it might have been.

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.

Simpler is Better

Sometimes we make things more complicated than they have to be. When we remove the complexity, things seem to get better. I have learned this lesson many times, but my trip to Macon Georgia proved it to me and my team.

Never Give Up – How we almost lost 4 team members

In June 2019, Process Improvement Partners was asked to help a leading consumer brands company execute its first Kaizen event in the history of its New Jersey factory. I came to the factory for a site assessment and determined there were many good candidates for their first Kaizen. After further discussions, we identified the first area for Kaizen.

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