Stories of Leadership, Lean, and Learning
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.
Read MoreMy 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.
Read MoreThe 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:
Read MoreDuring 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.
Read MoreI 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.
Read MoreIn 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.
Read MoreIn 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.
Read MoreDuring 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.
Read MoreI 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.
Read MoreFor 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.
Read MoreIt 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.
Read MoreIn 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.
Read MoreSometimes 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.
Read MoreIn 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.
Read MoreIn 2010, I was helping a team in Hilliard Ohio simplify the method they used for changing over a production line from one product to another.
The team came up with many ideas to simplify things and make things safer and more efficient around the line, and it looked like they were well on their way to reducing the changeover time by more than 50 percent, which was one of the key objectives.
Read MoreIn all my years doing continuous improvement work, I worked with teams during Kaizen events of short duration, or influencing continuous improvement behavior daily. Never did I think I would be doing 6 months straight of Kaizen. That is, until the Armstrong Lockout.
Read MoreProcess Improvement Partners was brought in to help a consumer goods manufacturer cut their changeover time (the time it takes to switch tooling and equipment over from one product to another) in half. By doing so, they would be able to reduce inventory and improve process performance.
Read MoreWhen you call Process Improvement Partners LLC for a site assessment, you are making a choice to invite outside perspective for your organization. While there is a fee for this service, there is also a significant investment of your time and resources, so it is good to understand the value of your investment.
Read MoreWe have been trying to get others to follow standard operating procedures since the Cavemen painted “Way to Kill Mastodon” on the cave walls!
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