Stories of Leadership, Lean, and Learning
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.
Read MoreWhen you are in the heat of battle, you don’t realize the toll it’s taking on your health. I was the business unit manager for a vinyl flooring operation for Armstrong World Industries for two years. During that time, we were in a continual state of downsizing. This didn’t help the relationship with our union. It seemed like everything we tried to do to improve safety, cost, quality, or customer service was met with resistance.
Read MoreThere is always a compromise that can be made. You just must know what you want and figure out how it will benefit both parties. I have been negotiating since as far back as I remember. Sometimes it was bedtime, eating my dinner, or putting off homework to go outside and play. Parents don’t typically cherish those negotiations and kids rarely win (at least I didn’t most of the time).
Read MoreI was working at the American Olean ceramic tile facility in Olean, New York as the Industrial Engineering manager when we merged with Dal-Tile. I was offered a position as an industrial engineer at the corporate offices in Dallas, Texas. I was very impressed with the manager who I was going to report to, so I took the opportunity and moved my family south.
Read MoreCritical problems seem to happen over a holiday weekend when there is less coverage. For me, Thanksgiving provided many challenges. Early in my career, I had to come into the ceramic tile factory the day after Thanksgiving to supervise a crew trying to clear a jam in the kiln. Many years later, a water main in St. Helens Oregon broke and shut down the ceiling tile plant. Once again, I was the one covering, and had to respond quickly and deal with a near disaster.
Read MoreDuring Armstrong’s Lean transformation, we took many benchmarking trips to learn from companies that were further along in their Lean journeys. One memorable trip included visits to Boeing and Nucor Steel in South Carolina on an extremely hot day in July.
Read MoreFor the early part of their Lean journey, I was the interim Lean Leader for Armstrong World Industries’ Hilliard Ohio plant. I was returning to the corporate office in Lancaster Pennsylvania from my assignment as Operations Manager at the St. Helens Oregon plant. I spent two out of every three weeks at the plant, until my family moved from the West coast to join me.
Read MoreWhen I opened my business, I tried many ways to attract clients. After spending money on advertising that didn’t lead to business, I focused on delivering a great customer experience and then let my business grow organically through word of mouth and referrals. This is a slower path, but it fits my principles of how I want to conduct my business.
Read MoreAdmit it. After reading the title of this story, some of you are hearing the famous Lionel Richie song in your head. This story isn’t about that, but rather it concerns a challenging Kaizen event I recently facilitated for CITY Furniture. The business problem we were trying to solve was a series of computer programs that ran after all showrooms closed each evening. There was a period of time where no revenue could be generated through their e-commerce website, until all programs completed their reconciliations. Our goal was to cut the time by 75%, so that we could free up overnight revenue generation.
Read MoreOn 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!
Read MoreI graduated from Virginia Tech and went to work as a corporate industrial engineer for Thomasville Furniture in North Carolina. Harriet was my first mentor. She was working on a project to improve the productivity of one of our bedroom furniture manufacturing facilities.
Read MoreI was facilitating a Kaizen event for a large furniture retailer in Florida. They offer many services that set them apart from their competitors. They have a nice sales and service advantage and impressive customer loyalty. The Kaizen topic we were working on was the use of replacement parts in their process. Our goal was to reduce the amount of replacement parts needed.
Read MoreI was asked to facilitate a 5S Kaizen at an electronics manufacturer. The specific area of interest was in a testing lab that was used to analyze components that failed in the field. There were an amazing number of parts and supplies in the lab. On first glance, the lab owner felt he needed everything in the lab to accurately perform testing. We must have removed 80% of everything in the space to improve the safety and productivity of the area.
Read MoreA 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.
Read MoreDuring 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.
Read MoreDuring my career at Armstrong World Industries, I honed my kaizen approach and spent more travel time at the Macon, Georgia plant than at any other location. That’s why I have so many stories to share about my time there.
Read MoreI have been fortunate to help strengthen the Kaizen culture of one of the largest furniture retailers in South Central Florida. They have been using Lean and Kaizen for more than 15 years and I have been facilitating many Kaizen events focused on improving operations performance and internal operations experience. A recent event focused directly on the end use customer.
Read MoreI was the industrial engineering manager at a ceramic tile plant in New York. We made mosaic tiles. The color went all the way through the tile. Mosaic is also a word used to describe the artistic patterns we made as special orders from our customers.
Read MoreI was a supervisor at a small ceiling grid plant in Franklin Park Illinois. I could see all the way from one end of the factory to the shipping docks at the other end from my second-floor office.
Read MoreI have been a small business owner for a few years. My company consists of me, my wife, my son, and my dog. I quickly learned I am responsible for everything that goes on. Nowhere is this more critical than customer acquisition.
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