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.

I knew it would be an uphill climb for me, as my job was one of influence. I had to capture the hearts and minds of my coworkers. It would have to happen one person at a time. With approximately 150 members of our team, I knew it would take a while to get to a point where we could see any indication of changing mindset.

As Lean Champion, I had to be a teacher, mentor, sensei, cheerleader, and pain in the ass at different times. Most people would say I was more of a pain in the ass than anything else. It was just me in the beginning, so I needed to get some allies. Luckily, I already had a few managers and coworkers who had seen my earlier Lean efforts with teams prior to our official Lean transformation. They were there with me, fighting alongside of me and lending credibility to my efforts. I also had the support of my manager, who had seen Lean applied in manufacturing and wanted similar or better results. Our group had taken a few hits over the past few years. A factory start-up didn’t go as well as planned and we had slowed our rate of developing new products for the market. There was a compelling case for change.

At the beginning of our Lean transformation, we strategically planned Kaizen events to target areas of the organization that needed the most help or would create high visibility for the results. Our first official Kaizen event was a Value Stream Mapping event, which is the Lean version of a strategic planning session. For many of the participants, this was their first time in a Kaizen event. I always want to generate energy and enthusiasm in the team, and as a facilitator, I had to put myself out there a lot. After my manager kicked off the event with words of encouragement, he handed control over to me. I decided to try something to get a positive reaction. I said, “I want to welcome you all to our very first Value Stream Mapping event in Technology. It’ll be our Best Event Ever!” Most of the room got the irony of the statement and laughed. Some didn’t know what to think and laughed too. I knew I was on to something.

At different times during the Value Stream Mapping event, I brought up the fact that we were doing work to assure this truly would be a great event, perhaps the best ever. People would poke fun at me every time. At the end of the event, during the report out to our sponsor and customers, my manager made a special point to say the event was truly the best event ever. Again, people laughed, but now they had something to use at my expense from then on.

Over the years, “Best Event Ever” was said many times by many people and the organization made many breakthroughs. An 18-month product development cycle was reduced to 10 months. The new product portfolio of $150 million was increased to $380 million. Over 95% of the total organization had participated in at least one Kaizen event and all new employees were onboarded with Lean principles, taught by the Lean Champion. The overall culture of the organization transformed to one with a continuous improvement mindset and the words of their pain in the ass Lean Champion were well ingrained by the time I left for my next adventure.

Macon Progress

Once upon a time in 1998, I helped a team in Macon Georgia improve the reliability and safety of one of their production lines. The work was exciting, the team was enthusiastic, and we were making breakthroughs beyond what I ever imagined could happen. Something was missing, however. For some reason our sponsor, the Business Unit Manager, never came out to the line to see what we were doing. Although the team didn’t seem to mind, it really bothered me. After all, we were doing things so quickly and effectively, and solving so many problems that others weren’t able to solve, I wondered why he didn’t appear to be interested in our progress. If you know me, you could predict I would do something about it. And, I wouldn’t be subtle about it.

On the evening of the first day, after the team left, I went to the sponsor’s office. I wanted to see if I could convince him to come out to the line the next day while we were doing our work. I thought his visit would reinforce the importance of the team’s work and might also show him what his people were capable of accomplishing when empowered to do so. During our discussion, I shared my observations of the team’s progress and how well they were working together and being open to changes in thinking. Then I asked him if he thought he might have some time the next day to join us for a while, so the team could show off their accomplishments. He informed me he would be tied up in meetings all day and might check things out when he had time. I left his office a bit frustrated, but hoped he’d stop by during a break, even though he made no commitment to do so.

The next day, the team made even more breakthroughs and were extremely proud of their efforts. We were having fun and people from the crew and the maintenance department came by to see what we were doing. It made the team feel good that people were noticing their work. By the end of the day, we still hadn’t been visited by our sponsor or any member of the management team. It didn’t feel right and I was determined to do something about it. I wanted to visit with my sponsor that evening, but I found out he had left the plant early to play golf or watch a high school baseball game, or something else that was a higher priority for him. I was getting really frustrated and probably should have left it alone, but I couldn’t.

On the third day, during a break, I decided to walk to the sponsor’s office and spend some time with him, if possible. Luckily (or unluckily), he was in his office and agreed to spend a few minutes with me. I started off by describing the great effort of the team. He listened to what I had to say, but seemed to be waiting for what I was really there to discuss. I then talked about how the team had been visited by others and how it seemed to drive enthusiasm and pride in the team. Finally, I told him that although it was great to have his sponsorship to do this work, it was disappointing that neither he nor the management team had come out to the line at any time during the week. I understood how busy things were at the plant, but I also felt it would be impactful for him to visit and demonstrate his commitment to the efforts of the team during the week.

I could tell I had struck a nerve. “Adam,” he said, “If you are questioning my commitment, you can do it from Lancaster (corporate headquarters)!” At that point, all I could do was try to dig myself out of a pretty deep hole. I really don’t remember what I said, but I wasn’t fired and I wasn’t sent home, so I guess that’s a win. I tried not to let my disappointment show to the team and the rest of the week we continued to make amazing breakthroughs. At the end of the week, we were able to get some management team members to join us for a tour of the changes. The sponsor showed up too. To this day, I don’t know if he would have showed up without our conversation, but I learned an extremely valuable lesson in that moment. I needed to develop a process to align with leadership and gain their commitment.

Now, many years later, I am able to provide the image of commitment to leadership teams. I illustrate what’s going to happen, how they can support team efforts, and what’s expected of them. Then, I can look the leadership team in the eyes to see if they are willing to commit. There have been times that I have had to walk away from an assignment or a potential client engagement, as it became clear they wouldn’t commit as much as I believed was required. It’s hard to walk away from a paying job, but I feel like my role is to give teams the best chance to win. If I don’t think they have the support to do that, I don’t want to subject them to a frustrating experience.

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 idea is to make it as engaging and impactful as possible. The next story is how I helped a team in St. Helens Oregon develop a Gemba walk that was impactful and drove organizational behavior to higher levels of performance.

I was the Operations Manager at Armstrong World Industries’ ceiling tile plant in St. Helens Oregon for just under three years. During that time, I had the great opportunity to test and apply some of my continuous improvement principles to the manufacturing organization directly and get immediate feedback from my efforts. I am proud to say we had some of the best operating results in the company, and I’d like to think that my efforts contributed to that. There were a bunch of great team behaviors that already existed, and I applied my approach in a way that utilized and enhanced the strong culture of teamwork.

I spent a large percentage of my time on the manufacturing floor, engaging with the technicians and auditing the systems that were keeping us safe and productive. We used many paper documents in our work and everyone was required to sign off when they completed critical tasks. The Team Managers were required to audit their crews on a regular basis and then I would audit their audits on a less frequent basis. At one point, we were 100% compliant for all critical tasks for many months in a row. The plant was operating at peak efficiency.

A Slip in Efficiency

During an economic downturn in 2010, the plant reduced staffing and I was offered a position in the corporate offices in Pennsylvania. I hated to leave my team, but I felt like the plant would continue operating well, using the systems developed during my tenure. Sadly, this was not the case, and efficiency and productivity started to suffer. The plant recognized this and implemented a daily staff-led Gemba walk. After many months, performance wasn’t improving and I was asked to come back out to the plant to see if I could help. I was happy to do so. I missed my team on the west coast.

The first morning of my visit, I attended the daily Gemba walk with the staff and observed their interactions and engagements with the technicians. There were eleven staff members who walked all over the factory, stopping at designated locations to engage with the technician doing a task. During each stop, they would ask these questions: Is everything okay? Do you need any help from us?

Most of the time, the technician would say everything was OK (it wasn’t) and they didn’t need any help (they did). The person asking the question would engage with the technician. The rest of the team didn’t seem to know their role. They weren’t paying much attention to what was going on. Afterwards, we would thank the technician for taking time with us and then walk to another location in the plant.

After we completed the Gemba walk, the staff asked me for my opinion. I told them that their purpose wasn’t being supported by the activity of the walk. If their intention was to show support and help for the technicians, it wasn’t apparent during the walk. The terse answers by the technicians showed they didn’t believe they were being supported or that sincere help was being offered. The lack of engagement by the full staff was troubling and it was apparent to their customers, the technicians.

The good news was, if they were willing, we could easily change the Gemba walk and achieve their purpose. However, they would need to engage their customers in the redesign of the Gemba walk. They were willing and we agreed to bring a small team of technicians, team managers, and staff together in the next day to redesign the Gemba walk.

A New Kind of Walk

The next morning, I reviewed the principles of a Gemba walk with the team. These principles included: Be help to those you interact with, assess the health of the operating system, and engage and support your customers (the technicians). I challenged the team to develop a focused purpose for their Gemba walk. They decided they wanted a Gemba walk that would help them prioritize and take action on the top issues causing safety and productivity risks. They also wanted the Gemba walk team to expose issues the technicians were overlooking in their everyday work. Finally, they only wanted people to attend the Gemba walk if they sincerely wanted to be there and were helpful.

Based on a refocused purpose, the team started designing the new Gemba walk. Their new design improved the questions to be asked, the way the staff would engage, and how issues were to be exposed. The new questions weren’t yes or no anymore, they were more “show me” questions. “Show me the issue that caused you downtime yesterday or concerned you from a safety standpoint.” “Show me how the valve works when you switch from tank A to tank B.”

In order to expose risks and increase engagement of staff with the technicians, the team created seven different responsibilities to be given to different Gemba walk team members. Examples included: safety auditor, standard work auditor, housekeeping auditor, and equipment auditor. These duties were written on cards and given out randomly to members of the staff at the beginning of the Gemba walk. At designated stops staff were to review their findings with the technicians and the team. The team would then prioritize the top issues at the end of the walk and take action on them.

Simple Changes, Large Improvements

The team conducted a Gemba walk using the new process. During the “simulated” walk, we asked various technicians their opinion of the newly designed process. They were extremely positive about it and thought it would be more helpful to them than the prior Gemba walk. With feedback from a number of technicians, the team finalized their new Gemba walk by the end of the day. The next morning, they started the new Gemba walk and uncovered many issues that had been holding back the performance and safety of the plant. Engagement improved, as well as safety and productivity over the next months and years.

I have seen Gemba walks in many stages of effectiveness. Some Gemba walk teams take a specified tour of their offices or facility and then end up at a white board to review performance and make assignments. While this is a vast improvement over staying in your offices and reading reports, it feels as though the person reporting results at a board is in the spotlight, or on trial. It doesn’t feel as engaging and helpful, as most of the participants are firing questions to the person reporting results. Slight improvements would make all the difference, and I encourage those who do things in this way to review and reflect upon their Gemba Walk purpose and make corrections that would better support their purpose, much like the St. Helens team did.

Color Coded Badges

The Pilot Plant at Armstrong World Industries, a global ceiling tile manufacturer, has tons of operating equipment designed to allow technicians, engineers, and scientists to try out their ideas and experiment in their efforts to create new processes and products. One of the areas in the Pilot Plant that gets the most use is the wood shop. Containing over 50 separate pieces of equipment, much of it requiring skills to operate it safely.

Each area in the Pilot Plant has an owner, and the wood shop is no exception. Troy is his name (made up to protect the guilty), and he manages a tight ship. As much of the equipment in the wood shop had cutting and grinding capabilities, there was a need to train people to use the equipment safely and properly. Troy takes his responsibilities very seriously and has trained all of the people who wanted to use the equipment himself, on an annual basis. If someone wanted to use the equipment but wasn’t trained or qualified, Troy wouldn’t let them. That is, if he was aware of it.

It turns out that some of the employees used the equipment without training or qualification from Troy, when he wasn’t there. Word got back to Troy and he was not happy about it. This was his area and he was responsible for it. He knew he needed to do something to keep people safe and doing the right thing, but his earlier efforts confronting those who were breaking the rules didn’t get the desired results. He even spoke with the managers of those who were breaking the rules and that didn’t work either. More and more frustrated, he looked like he was about to blow a gasket one day and I decided to see if how I could help.

Shifting Responsibility

When we first started discussing the problem, Troy told me people should respect the rules and equipment and act responsibly. If they weren’t willing to follow the rules and keep themselves safe, “we should fire the lot of them.” Knowing that terminating employees isn’t the ideal solution, I wondered if he was willing to try a different approach. As I had worked with Troy for many years and we got along pretty well, he humored me and listened to what I had to say.

I acknowledged the problem and how critical it was for people to do the right thing. I also acknowledged Troy’s tremendous energy and effort that he had put into the training and expectations in the wood shop. He had trained more than fifty employees annually and kept careful records. He did the follow-up and communication and tracked compliance. Quite a task, as it was in addition to his normal duties in the Pilot Plant. I asked Troy if he thought there was a way to make it easier to enforce compliance that wouldn’t be totally reliant on him. If I saw Joe using a band saw, I had no way of knowing whether Joe had been trained and qualified to use the band saw. I could ask Joe, but that wasn’t an efficient way to create accountability.

Troy looked at me kind of funny. I get that look often. I could tell he was processing my question. Then I pointed out the area in his wood shop where everyone can assess compliance, the tool board. Anyone could tell whether all the right tools were on the board and when they were missing. It was easy to step in and hold people accountable to do the right thing. The visual nature of the board made it easy for anyone to help. Now the light bulb went on for Troy. I was ready to help some more, but I could see that he wanted to figure things out for himself.

Earn Your Badge

Three weeks later, Troy was ready to share his solution for training and accountability in the wood shop. He created a badge system with three colors, red, blue, and yellow. Yellow was the lowest safety risk level, blue was next, and red was the top safety risk level. He identified the safety risk of each of the over 50 pieces of equipment used in the wood shop, assigned them a risk color, and attached the appropriate badge to each piece of equipment. Next, he communicated the new badging system to the organization. Finally, he would personally assign a badge to each person based on their training and Troy’s qualification rules. Only Troy could issue the badge and only someone wearing a badge was authorized to use the equipment with the corresponding risk level as the badge being worn. If you wanted a higher-level badge, you had to be personally trained and qualified by Troy. Nobody got a colored badge unless Troy authorized it.

The rest of the organization was now able to assess compliance within seconds and help Troy keep everyone safe and doing the right thing. Troy put in all of the preparation and effort. But the rest of the organization could help him maintain compliance. It didn’t take long before we stopped hearing stories of people trying to go around the system. And for good reason, our leaders were holding themselves accountable to help Troy keep the area safe and compliant. The rest of the organization saw how important it was and stayed compliant. It stayed that way through my last days at Armstrong. If I know the organization and Troy, it still is that way to this day.

Little Things Mean A Lot – Revisited

A global consumer goods manufacturer was experiencing high levels of downtime, jams, and long changeovers on a critical production line. They invited Process Improvement Partners to their plant to observe and discuss the problem and identify opportunities for improvement. After reviewing performance, we took a walk to the line. The line was running, and after a description of line components, it became apparent there were quick opportunities to improve performance of the line. The techniques we would use were quite basic: leveling, squaring, aligning, and centering of products with the process. It seemed so simple, and the customers were skeptical. We suggested a five-day Kaizen to improve line reliability, scheduled for January 2019.

Leading up to the Kaizen event, we had many discussions with line operators, mechanics, and engineers, and we made several confirming observations on the line. During a discussion with the Plant Manager, it became apparent he didn’t buy-in to the approach. He had used a process called “Center Lining” before, and had mixed results. In addition, it took weeks to accomplish. We assured him centering of the process would be completed on the first day of the Kaizen and then we would optimize all parts of the process around the center in the following days. He was still skeptical, but heard enough and saw our confidence, and gave final approval for the Kaizen to proceed.

Taking a Different Approach

In most Kaizen events, we provide a structured approach to the team charged with solving a problem. We very rarely dictate specific actions to the team. In this case, the entire first day was controlled and team members were asked to follow very specific instructions before implementing their ideas.

After receiving training on the approach, the team walked to the production line. We reviewed safety requirements, shut down the line, and locked it out. The next step was to identify the center of the critical packaging process. This was the part of the line where everything comes together – the product and the package. We told the team everything leading up to the packaging process should be located and optimized to the center of the process. They didn’t think it would be very important, but were willing to learn and find the center of the line.

We located the center of the line at the midpoint of the conveyor frame on the out-feed side of the equipment and wrapped a string around that point. Then, stretching the string through the equipment, we found the center of the conveyors leading up to the equipment. A trained eye can keep the center precise within 1/32”, so we found what we believed to be center along approximately 100 feet of equipment and conveyor and pulled the string taut. Then, we marked the equipment and conveyor every 4 feet along its length to identify center for the process. Once complete, we noticed all product was coming into the equipment off center. The packaging was tracking off-center as well. That was the first time the skeptical team members saw something they weren’t expecting.

Taking Things to the Next Level

Our next step was to check the levelness of all of the conveyors leading up to and through the equipment. Ideally, all conveyors should be no more than 1/32” out of level at every transition (one section of conveyor to the next section) and side to side. Using a torpedo level and some shims, the team documented levelness of every section of conveyor.

In the middle of the leveling effort, I realized the team needed a longer level than was available in the various toolboxes around the line. Having done some work in the weld shop in the same factory, I knew there was a six-foot level that would be helpful in our efforts. I walked to the weld shop and asked the area owner if I could borrow the level. He reminded me of the rules of the tools in the weld shop – “Tools should either be on the board or in use. So, don’t forget to return the level as soon as you’re finished with it!” I reassured him that I was well aware of the rule (I had helped the team develop it, after all). So, sufficiently held accountable, I took the level with me.

Now, you need to know that the level had a label on it that read, “Weld Shop 6 Foot Level.” There was no way to not know where it came from and where it was supposed to go. Using the level, I was able to help the team identify and locate proper location and levelness of the conveyers.

Rule of the Tools

Every so often, I had to put down the level, and I made sure I placed it carefully on a table. Sam, an operator on the line we were working on reminded me that I was responsible to return the level as soon as we were done with it. Then, Ray, a supervisor on another line who happened to be walking by made sure to tell me the same rule. Then the HR manager told me. And finally, the plant manager, who was over at the line checking out our work, felt that he needed to remind me to return the level to the weld shop. Whether or not they were doing this to mess with me, it didn’t matter. What did matter was that the story of the weld shop and the rules of the tools had made it all the way through the plant. Every time I was told the rules, the rules were reinforced. This was exactly what I hoped for.

Over the course of our work, the team found many of the conveyors were out of level by more than ¼” and some were out as much as ½”. The good news was this condition was easily corrected, and by the end of two hours, all conveyors were leveled throughout the process. The team was losing its skepticism as the products ran more consistently once we started the line back up. The first day ended with the team handing the line back over to the production organization. And, yes, I returned the level to the weld shop.

Recognize the Effort, Not the Results

When teams start working on a problem, they are often given the freedom to choose their own solution path, and it may not be anything like you were anticipating. I learned many years ago every time I tried to predict what a team was going to do; I would be wrong. They typically beat anything I could come up with. So, I decided to stop trying to guess and shifted my focus to helping them accomplish as much as was possible during the short time of the Kaizen event. To do this, I had to come up with creative ways to encourage them. Some ways were silly, some were formal, but they always seemed to remember the recognition. Here are two examples:

Clapping helps, believe it or not

I set milestones during Kaizen events. When the team reached them, I encouraged the rest of the team members to clap in recognition for their efforts. A team would come back with their plan for the next steps of their work. They’d review it with the rest of the team and then get feedback on their approach. At the end of the review, I’d say, “Let’s show them how we feel about their efforts so far.” I’d start clapping for them and the rest of the team would join in. Those who were reviewing their plans started clapping, and you could see the pride in their faces for their efforts. As we did this more, the team would naturally clap for each other’s efforts. Sometimes we’d make fun of ourselves, but we didn’t stop clapping. It’s infectious! We came up with any number of reasons to clap for each other.

Little trinkets seem to matter

When awards are given, the money gets spent, but the symbol lives on and reminds us of what we did and how we felt. Here’s a little story about that:

As a consultant, I was always getting something – shirts, cups, paperweights, and other trinkets from my clients for the event. It was usually my suggestion to the sponsor to give the team something to remember the event by and make sure it wasn’t money. So, invariably, I’d receive a trinket too. Plus, I was paid for what I was doing, and was well fed. Not a bad deal. But I felt like I should do something for my team members too. I wanted to show my appreciation for their efforts. After a while, I came up with the idea of creating a special coin, which I call my “token of appreciation.” It’s gold colored and is given to team members who make it through the entire Kaizen event. On the last day of the Kaizen event, I greet each team member as they enter the room and hand them a coin and thank them personally for their efforts.

When I first started handing out coins, I was a little uncomfortable doing it, as it was new to me and to them. But I got all sorts of positive reactions to it. Some thanked me, some asked me if they were chocolate or real gold (they weren’t), but everyone seemed to appreciate my thinking of them. Then, one of my team members said, “This is my new lucky coin!” I thought he was just being kind. A few months later, I was walking through the factory and heard a forklift coming down an aisle in my direction. Stopping about 20 feet from me, the forklift driver called to me, “Adam, check it out, I still have my lucky coin!” I couldn’t believe it. He was holding up the coin proudly. It really mattered to him. It made my day, and over a year later, it still makes me smile when I think about it.

But wait, the story isn’t over. Over 9 months later, I was walking through the same plant, ran into the same team member, and he proudly showed me how much his lucky coin had worn down. I have been carrying a coin in my pocket since the first time I started handing them out, so my coin was pretty worn down too. We compared our two coins and he was proud that his coin was more worn than mine was. So simple, but so meaningful. I was going to find a new trinket to hand out for the future, but now I realize there’s no reason to. People like the idea of the coin, so why change? It’s the thought that counts.

Understanding is Critical

In February 2020, Process Improvement Partners was asked to facilitate a strategic planning session in Montreal for a global consumer products company. Having facilitated multiple Kaizen events where English is not the primary language, we set about to design an event that would incorporate additional translation time and resource effort for the event. Normally, this type of session takes three days.  Even though we were told that most participants were bi-lingual, we aligned with the sponsor and leader and added four hours to the event plan.

In the weeks leading up to the event, presentation slides were developed and sent to the team leader to be modified to show English and French terms. I knew that the first day of the session would be the most challenging, as most participants had no Kaizen event or Lean experience. With much training, demonstration, and direction, we had to ensure important elements were clearly and correctly understood.

On the first day of the event, every time anyone spoke, there was translation into French or English. Every time someone asked a question in French, it was translated into English. Any English discussion was translated into French. Things were going slower than anticipated. By lunchtime, we were two hours behind. People were getting concerned. I knew we were going to be fine as the week wore on. The first day is more focused on discussion than teamwork and it feels longer and is more challenging to first-timers.

Aligning and Adjusting

At the end of the first day, we were exactly four hours behind. Those four extra hours planned for in the overall event were already used up. Additionally, in a feedback session at the end of the day, most team members said we were translating more than necessary. After most of the team left, we regrouped with the team leader and sponsors to build a plan to get us back on track. On a positive note, all team members were speaking freely and engaging extremely well. This was most critical for the overall success of the event. In preparations for the event, the leader and sponsors weren’t expecting so much engagement. Their initial skepticism led to the translation requirement.

We agreed we would reduce the translation to an “as needed” basis. This meant that we would ask our engaged team members to speak up when they needed translation or further explanation. It was risky, but we would pay attention to the room and draw out requests for translation if we saw engagement declining. We then joined the team at dinner and watched the team strengthen during the evening.

On the morning of Day 2, we explained our new strategy to the team, in English and French, and told them it would be the last translation they received until they requested it. We also agreed not to translate anything into English. When a question was asked in French, it would be answered in French. The facilitators didn’t need to understand the conversation, unless they were asked something they had to specifically answer. The team liked the new approach.

Less Translation, More Engagement

Once we got the hang of the reduced translation and started watching the team for their understanding, progress happened faster and the team seemed more engaged and satisfied. At the end of the second day, the team reflected their appreciation for the change in approach and showed an optimism for the day’s work and the work to come.

The next two days flew by and the team built a strategic plan of which they could be proud. Their plan improved productivity, safety, quality, and customer service. They also learned many new tools and techniques they could use to solve problems in their day to day work. On the final day, ten different presenters told the story of the week and the strategic plan to an audience attending by video conference all over the world. Those in the audience said they could feel the enthusiasm and alignment and were amazed by how professional the presenters were, regardless of their position. They voiced their support to the team and encouraged them to implement their plan. Some even wanted them to implement it sooner than planned.

The week reinforced how critical communication and understanding is for the team to win. Even though we reviewed progress and issues with translation at the end of the first day, we now know we need to do it sooner if we find ourselves in a similar situation in the future. For the team’s part, we can only thank them for hanging in there while we were learning this valuable lesson.

Things Aren’t Always What They Seem

In 2011, Armstrong’s Marietta ceiling plant was utilizing technical resources and replacement workers to run the plant. Management and the labor union were unable to come to an agreement around their contract, and for seven months, the union workers were locked out.

During that time, I assisted with day to day production operations, maintenance activities, and many process improvements. I worked all over the plant, identifying and implementing as many improvement projects as possible. I was extremely motivated, as the projects improved safety, quality, and productivity for the rest of the plant. The work helped me through the long days, energizing me as I could see instant results from my efforts.  Others were mostly happy with my work. I say mostly, because not everything worked as planned or as expected.  This one of those stories.

The Lamination Line

One of the most critical lines in the plant was the lamination line. It put a top layer on the ceiling tiles. Customers were willing to pay a premium for these tiles. The lamination line was producing at a lower than budgeted rate and had a large amount of downtime. I decided to see if I could help reduce the downtime and increase the production rate.

When I arrived at the line, I met with Wayne, an innovation scientist who was running the line and teaching others to operate it efficiently. We discussed the issues causing line downtime and reduced output rate, then he gave me a tour of the line. On the tour, it became apparent that the position of the board as it enters the laminating process was most critical. I noticed boards were entering the process at an angle. Wayne told me most of the time the angled board could be cut into usable pieces and when it appeared to be too much of an angle, he would stop the line and make adjustments.

I took a look at the conveyer before the laminating process and noticed a series of angled rolls. These rolls were angled to move the board over to one side of the conveyer and keep it against a guiding rail. There were 36 total rolls along the conveyer, and of those, 28 were angled. I believed there were too many angled rolls. They were driving the board at an angle past the guide rail, keeping the board from entering the laminating process squarely.

A New Way to Roll

I asked Wayne if he was willing to try an experiment. I wanted to straighten out most of the rolls, leaving just a few angled rolls. The board would be driven to the guide rail using the angled rolls and then the straight rolls would keep it straight as it entered the laminating process. Wayne asked me how long it would take. I estimated four hours of effort with his help and the help of a mechanic. The line was scheduled to be down for maintenance the next day. If we could do the work then, he would be happy to help.

The next day we started the work with the help of a mechanic. We identified the center of the laminating process and positioned the guide rail parallel to the direction of travel of the board into the process. Next, we moved the guide rail to the optimal position to guarantee the board would be centered entering the process. We marked the original position and current position, just in case we had any issues. Next, we started straightening the rolls.

An engineer came by to see what we were doing. When I explained, he told me he had installed the laminator a few years back and was responsible for all of the angled rolls. He didn’t agree with what we were doing and tried to convince us to stop our work and put everything back. I assured him we were experimenting and were willing to put everything back to its original position if necessary. Although he didn’t seem satisfied, he decided to go elsewhere while we did our work.

Sometimes Less is More

After just under four hours, we were done. Before starting up the line, I called the engineer to see if he wanted to see the results of our experiment. He said he would come over later that day. We didn’t want to wait, so we started up the line and sent some test boards down the line. The first time, we had a jam. When we looked at the cause, we realized the new position of the rolls and the guide rail had an adverse effect on equipment on the other side of the line. We shut down the line and made some adjustments to take into account the new arrangement.

On our next attempt, the test boards entered the laminating process in a straight and square fashion. We were excited, but weren’t ready to declare victory. We started up the line and put it into production. We were amazed, the boards were not only going in exactly as we hoped, but they were spaced out more evenly as they came down the line. Wayne was excited and now wanted to speed up the line. He made small changes to speed until the line was running 20% faster than it had ever run. Right in the middle of this, the engineer came by to see what had happened. He was surprised things were going so well, but admitted he had angled so many rolls without considering the impact on the overall process. He then said, “Maybe less is more - too much of a good thing may be a bad thing.”

Over the next few months, we made additional improvements to the laminating process and the plant had a much more productive and safe operation than before we started.

Trust, but Verify

In 2005, I was asked to be part of a team to help Armstrong’s Mobile Alabama ceiling tile plant improve their performance.  Production output had steadily declined over the first few months of the year, and they were well behind budget.  The team was tasked with identifying and implementing improvements to the operation that would drive performance back to budget for the full year. The team leader called the effort a “Full Court Press”, meaning we would not give up until we accomplished our mission.

The Mobile plant had one board forming line and two fabrication and packaging lines. The board forming line was clearly not the problem, as the quality, productivity, and safety were well above budgeted performance. The fabrication and packaging lines were where the losses were occurring, so we agreed to focus our efforts there.

On our first day at Mobile, we attended the morning production meeting. We introduced the team to the staff and reviewed performance. The plant staff members were open to our help, but weren’t sure what we would be able to deliver in a short time. We assured the staff we would do our best and coordinate any efforts through them. Once the meeting ended, we took a tour of the fabrication department. During this tour, we observed many problems and spoke with operators, mechanics, and other staff to get feedback and ideas. Many were disappointed with the performance and hoped we would be able to help them turn things around.

Each of our team members had a specialty. One was interested in the programming used to control the equipment, another was fascinated by the coordination of materials and resources. My area of expertise was flow of materials through the production line. During the tour, I noticed many line-stops and jams. I knew I could provide help.

With the agreement of our team leader, another team member and I took a detailed look at one of the main fabrication lines. This line was led by a technician named Walter. Walter was extremely interested in what we were doing, and asked if he could tour the line with us. We were happy to have him along, as he introduced us to all of the crew members and lent credibility to our efforts. He also appreciated our approach of watching the line carefully to identify the causes of the line-stops and jams.

Something Isn’t Hitting Right

On our tour, we stopped at the punch press to watch its operation. Something didn’t look right to me. The press creates holes in the ceiling tiles which allow air and sound to enter the tile. It’s critical for the ceiling tile to enter and exit the press squarely and centered. Following the press, there’s a gate that stops the tile while the press completes its work. If the tile is angled, the edge of the tile gets damaged when it hits the gate. As I watched the tiles enter and exit the press, I noticed they weren’t exiting the press squarely and hitting the stop-gate at an angle.

I asked the press operator if he was concerned about the tiles hitting the stop gate at an angle. He told us he thought any damage would be cut out later down the line. It looked to me as though the amount of damage wouldn’t cut out completely, but the operator was convinced otherwise. I made notes of what I had seen, and we continued our tour.

Following the press, tiles were being painted and then cut to final size. After the cutting station, tiles went through an inspection station, where two operators were visually checking the quality of each and every one. While we were there, the inspectors were rejecting one-third of the tiles they were inspecting. There was so much scrap being generated they were having a hard time keeping up and had to stop the line many times.

During one line-stop we asked the inspectors what they were seeing. They showed us the broken edges of the tiles. The edges had cracks down the length of the tiles at an angle. They looked just like the angle of the press stop-gate we had seen earlier. I asked the inspectors for a few samples, which they were more than happy to share.

A New Angle on the Situation

We took a walk back to the press with Walter. We showed the press operator the sample ceiling tiles. He was shocked. He didn’t realize the stop-gate was causing so much scrap. He immediately shut the line down to make adjustments.

While the line was down, I asked if I could take a look inside the press to see if there might be a reason the tiles were hitting the gate at an angle. After locking out the press, I took a closer look and was amazed at what I saw. The guide rails in the press were not straight as designed, but curved. These rails were causing the tiles to turn at an angle when they entered the press. All plants had scheduled maintenance to replace press guide rails every six months. When I asked the press operator when the last time the rails had been changed, he didn’t remember, but thought it had been years. I then asked if they had backup press guide rails in their storeroom. Luckily, they did. Even luckier, they were straight.

Setting Things Straight

We replaced the curvy press guide rails with straight ones, and started up the press. Immediately we stopped the press. We were still damaging the edges of the tiles, this time at a different angle. We quickly identified the problem. The stop-gate was angled for the curvy guide rails and had not been adjusted for straight press guide rails. Once we straightened the stop-gate, the edge damage disappeared. After a few handshakes and high fives, we created a monthly press guide rail inspection and a six-month replacement program for this critical component.

During the week, the team made many other quick improvements and planned out other work that helped the Mobile plant return to budgeted performance for the year. If there’s a lesson to be learned from Armstrong’s Mobile plant, it’s to trust your processes, but verify them on a regular basis. Trust alone cannot eliminate inefficiencies or waste from creeping in, but consistent verification can identify these issues quickly so that they can be corrected.

The Strength of Ownership

My focus in continuous improvement has always been to help teams solve problems in a sustainable way. Early on in my career, I learned many facilitation techniques through trial and error, mostly error. One of the biggest errors I ever made during a Kaizen event was to be too directive with a team. When one of the team members said, “Adam wants us to do this…,” I knew I was in trouble.

Another early mistake I made during Kaizen events was to take responsibility for writing team member ideas on a flipchart while they were shouting them out to me. While this seems like a natural thing to do, I was taking ownership for team member ideas by writing them. I also was hindering engagement during the event, as the only person that cared about what I was writing was the person speaking the idea and me, the person writing it. The rest of the team didn’t need to pay attention to what was going on. This approach also allowed for dominant team members to get more attention than less vocal team members.

Post-It™ Notes – The Great Equalizer

I knew I needed to change my approach to drive engagement and ownership to the team members. My first change was to use Post-It™ notes for gathering ideas from team members. Each team member would write their ideas, one per Post-It™, and then speak them, one at a time. In this way, everyone had an equal opportunity to voice their ideas, and they were written in a way that was meaningful to them.

I started to develop fun ways to share the ideas, with a focus on giving everyone equal opportunity to share their thoughts and minimizing the opportunity to dominate the conversation by stronger team members.  I also noticed that Post-It™ Notes were the great equalizer. It didn’t matter what level in the organization a team member was. Their Post-It™ Note looked just like anyone else’s.

Once we uncovered all team ideas, I had to develop ways to prioritize them. There are many ways to do this, but the approach I settled on was multi-voting. Each team member gets an equal number of votes and is asked to pick their favorite ideas and place their vote on the ideas. As an example, there might be 100 unique ideas written on Post-Its™ and 10 team members. Each team member is given a vote to place on their 5 favorite ideas to work on and implement during the Kaizen event. The ideas with the most votes are the ones the team will work on. This technique works fast, but there seemed to be something missing. People told me that it was chaotic and there was something didn’t feel right about how things were prioritized. I knew I had to improve multi-voting.

Adding Process to Chaos

One event, I added criteria to the process of multi-voting to see if it would focus the group and help them feel more comfortable with the approach. I added these criteria to use when voting for a favorite idea:

1.       It provides the biggest benefit to the customer and to us (related to the problem to be solved)

2.       I actually want to do this (personal interest in the work)

3.       We can accomplish and implement this during the Kaizen (fast implementation and low money spent)

Once I developed the criteria, the teams seemed more confident they were choosing the right ideas to work on. The criteria all but guaranteed people were interested in what they were doing, which would maximize the results, and the work would get completed quickly.

Pick Your Passion

Now that we knew the top priority work, we would assign team members to the work. I usually left this to the team leader. I noticed some team members didn’t like their assignments and I knew I had to come up with something better. That’s when inspiration hit me. What if I could help team members connect with the project they truly wanted to work on? One day, I decided to try something new. After prioritizing the top three projects to work on and writing them on a flip chart, I said, “First come, first served, put your name on the project you want to work on.” Immediately, two team members jumped out of their chairs in order to put their names on projects that were most meaningful to them. This was just the reaction I was hoping for. The connection between the team members and the work was strong. But, could I replicate this reaction?

It turns out, I have used the same approach throughout the world and it’s not unusual for some team members to jump out of their chairs to put their names on the projects that matter to them most.  Not everyone does that, and it allows us to balance the teams to the projects. I learned to set the safety expectations prior to making my “First come, first served” statement.

I have used these facilitation techniques and many others to strengthen the engagement, empowerment and commitment of teams. In the end, I want them to win. I will continue to refine my approach to help them do that.

Championing Change in Technology

In 2010, a private equity firm took a minority stake in Armstrong World Industries.  They brought in many leaders at executive levels and committed to a strategy of Lean transformation. Their initial focus was manufacturing, and then when ready, they would expand efforts to the supporting organizations.  From 2010 through 2012 in the manufacturing organization, emphasis was placed on Lean training and conducting hundreds of Kaizen events.  In many cases, outside consultants were brought in. But, where there was experience, internal resources worked with teams and facilitated Kaizen events.

I had many years of experience facilitating Kaizen events and I was given the opportunity to travel all over the world, helping teams solve complex problems and keep them solved in a sustainable way.  Although I wasn’t part of the manufacturing organization at the time, I was often requested to facilitate, especially when there were complex problems to solve.

I enjoyed the work, but I also knew I needed to focus on improving my organization, Global Technology.  For years, I tried to convince leadership to utilize Lean to improve their critical processes. While they were interested, they never made the commitment to the continuous improvement effort.

Applying Lean Principles to Global Technology

In January 2012, everything changed.  Global Technology named a new Vice President, who had an extensive manufacturing background. He returned from an assignment in Europe, ready to make an impact on his new organization.  I worked for him indirectly a few years prior to his return, so we already had a working relationship. After letting him settle into his new job for a few weeks, I requested a meeting to discuss the application of Lean to the Global Technology processes. Luckily, I had two sponsors who had seen what Lean was able to accomplish in some global technology test areas, most notably the Pilot Plant.

Together, my sponsors and I met with the VP in March to promote our idea – apply Lean principles to Global Technology in a way that would improve the results of our projects and grow customer confidence. He was intrigued and wanted to know what we would do first. My suggestion was to run a Global Technology Value Stream Mapping event, identifying the highest value opportunities from our customers’ perspective, developing strategies to make improvements over the coming months and years. He was excited by the idea and invited us to present our recommendation to the Global Technology leadership team at their April meeting.

After reviewing year to date Global Technology results, the VP introduced me to the leadership team and told them about the recommendation for the Value Stream Mapping event. He explained how important and critical this work would be and he wanted everyone to clear their calendars so we could get started quickly. Then, he turned the discussion over to me. Most of what I wanted to cover had already been explained, so I started off by saying, “What he said!” Then, I described the Value Stream Mapping process and how we would apply it to the Global Technology processes. The leadership team seemed skeptical, but willing to give this new approach a try. When the VP said he wanted to start with an event in May, I knew we were on a fast-moving train and I had much work to do to prepare.

Identifying the Customers’ Perspective

Over the next few weeks, we contacted some of our critical customers from the plants, Marketing, and other areas of the organization. We also gained commitment from all Global Technology leadership team members to participate in the entire 3-day event, which would be held at a local hotel. I was able to get a co-facilitator who was not part of the working team and together we built a plan for the Value Stream Mapping session that would be relevant for our non-manufacturing processes.

On the first day of the event, a team of 25 high-level participants were in the same room and they heard the VP describe the importance of the effort. Then, he turned the meeting over to me. For the next few hours, I described Value Stream Mapping and then split the full team into working groups to identify the most critical customer requirements. After reviewing those requirements, we mapped out two critical Global Technology Value Streams:  New product development and capital project execution. By the end of the first day, we had a pretty clear picture of the current state and issues that were keeping the team from executing the processes well from their customers’ perspective.

Champion of Lean

The VP sent the team to dinner and asked me to stick around to talk for a few minutes prior to dinner. The first thing he said was, “You’re pretty good at this, how would you like to do this full time?” Immediately I responded, “Absolutely!” He was surprised by my quick answer and told me he hadn’t even made a financial offer. I told him that I trusted him to do the right thing and it was more important for me to do what I love, rather than worry about pay.

The next two days were a blur. Significant progress was made and clear strategies were developed to improve project execution and customer service in the new product development and capital project execution Value Streams.

For the next six years, I was the Lean Champion for Armstrong’s Global Technology organization. During that time, I was able to help teams drive new product development time down from 18 to 10 months, grow the new product portfolio from $150 million to $380 million, and increase customer confidence in the work of the Global Technology organization. More importantly, we were able to create a culture of engagement, empowerment, and improvement in the organization.

An Open Mind Will Lead to the Right Answer

Early this year, Process Improvement Partners was invited to conduct a site assessment for a packaging company in western Pennsylvania. The facility was operating a new technology that wasn’t performing to expectations. They wanted to identify opportunities to improve their situation using the engagement and empowerment of their employees.

Arriving the evening before the assessment, I had dinner with a former Armstrong co-worker, who was now working for the packaging company. He had convinced the plant manager to host my visit. He explained the issues with the new technology and some of his preliminary thoughts on what might help things improve. The plant manager wasn’t able to join us for dinner; I would have to wait until the next day to hear his thoughts and determine if we could align around next steps.

The Challenge of Team Engagement

The next morning, I arrived at the plant early and met the plant manager.  He invited me to join him and his team at the morning production meeting. During the meeting, I observed the leadership team structure. The plant manager led the meeting, got feedback from his team, and then made final decisions. There was a sense of comradery and a command and control structure. This was my first indication of the potential challenge of team engagement at the facility. I would use the rest of the day to verify this observation.

Following the production meeting, the team took a walk out into the plant. Led by the plant manager, we spoke with many of the technicians at their workstations. They reviewed issues and the plant manager gave instructions to the workers and the leadership team. I got a sense for the connection between the technicians and management, but again, it felt more command and control than engagement and empowerment. 

We arrived at the equipment that was the main focus of concern in the plant. A new (to them) technology, the equipment operated at low performance levels and took days to stabilize after product changeovers. There was a huge investment in data collection and monitoring equipment, but I didn’t see things in place to make the technicians’ jobs easier, such as clear and visible settings and simple standard work. One of the lead technicians, let’s call him Mike, spoke about how difficult it was to get initial settings and then how much adjusting was required following any product changeover. He was frustrated with the current situation and was hoping I might be able to help. I was encouraged by his passion to improve the situation.

Reducing Variation Leads to Stabilization

When we completed the tour, it was time for lunch. Some of the leadership team joined and wanted to know what I thought. I told them there were many opportunities to help the new line perform in a more stable way. Mike, the lead technician also joined us and was keen to understand what I thought should be done first.

My recommendation was to run a changeover improvement event, focused on simplifying and streamlining the efforts to make physical equipment changes. Mike estimated this portion of the changeover took between six and ten hours. I stated we could reduce the time by half or more.

The plant manager spoke up and said he wanted the team to focus on the time following the changeover, when the line normally took days to stabilize. This was where the savings would come from and he needed a win. I explained my logic around working on the equipment changeover first:  By reducing or eliminating variation in the changeover, the time to stabilize would be greatly reduced. If we worked on the effort to stabilize following the changeover first, we would be trying to simplify things without reducing any of the variation that leads to the long time to stabilize. As I explained my recommendation, I saw Mike nodding in agreement. The plant manager was not convinced.

The plant manager asked Mike directly, “Why wouldn’t you want to work on stabilizing first? That’s where the pain and opportunity are.  Don’t you agree?” Mike took a breath and said, “If we don’t reduce the variation in the equipment changeover itself, there won’t be any starting point for the stabilizing effort. I agree with Adam’s assessment, take out the variation first, and the stabilizing will go much quicker.”

Change Starts by Listening to People

Not yet convinced, the plant manager stated, “I have to have a win. Cutting the changeover time in half won’t save us as much money as cutting the stabilizing time. I don’t think I can sell this approach to corporate management. Mike, don’t you think we should go this route, rather than Adam’s suggestion?” Mike stood his ground and stated, “I really think this is the way to go.” Unwilling to yield, the plant manager declared, “I really don’t see how this is the answer.”

I jumped in and said, “You’ve asked Mike three times and he’s clearly telling you something you don’t agree with. He has the experience and knows what he deals with on a daily basis. I doubt he’ll change his mind just because you want him to. If you want to engage your people, you have to be willing to listen to them.”

It was time for me to make my pitch. “Here’s a compromise: Let’s do the equipment changeover event first. We’ll also spend some time on how it will affect stabilizing. We can monitor the time to stabilize for a month or so. If the time isn’t coming down as expected, we can run another event, laser focused on the stabilizing efforts.”

The plant manager took a deep breath. Finally, he said, “You know, this is starting to make sense to me. I think I can sell this approach to our corporate management.” Now I knew there was a chance we would be able to engage the rest of the organization to make a much-needed change. The rest of the day, we built a charter for the event, designed around the equipment changeover.

On my drive home, I reflected on the day. I knew I could work with this new client. I also knew how close I was to not having the opportunity. If we’re unwilling to change our positions and listen to our people, we might miss out on meaningful, sustainable change.

Rally to the Customer

Armstrong World Industries makes billions of square feet of ceiling tiles every year, shipping to locations all around the world. Most of these tiles are white. The remainder are off-white or a few standard colors.  If a customer wants non-standard colors, until recently, Armstrong used an outside vendor.

In 2017, the vendor was getting behind on orders from Armstrong. I was asked to join a team visiting the vendor to find out what was causing the delays and to identify options. We took a guided walk of the facility. I could see things weren’t well organized and processes were backed up. When the rest of the team attended meetings with the vendor leadership, I decided to stay out on the floor and find out what was really going on. I spoke with a number of operators, who were very open to discussing the current situation. It appeared things were about to change in a big way and the managers weren’t paying much attention to the day to day operations. Every order was behind.

Overlooking Operations

When the other meetings were over, I reviewed what I had observed with the team. They found out the vendor was about to expand capacity and new product offerings. They weren’t spending much time or attention on the day to day operations. Moreover, the factory was to be shut down for a number of weeks during the expansion project. Some of the new equipment used technology the vendor had no experience with. I knew we wouldn’t be able to rely on the vendor in the short term and possibly long term. We needed to come up with another way to provide non-standard color tiles to our loyal customers. If not, they wouldn’t stay loyal to us.

When I returned to Armstrong’s corporate center, I reviewed my findings with my sponsors. We agreed we couldn’t rely on the vendor to meet customer demand in a timely fashion. We had to come up with another solution. I was tasked to find the solution quickly. Working with my counterpart in Marketing, who was responsible for the relationship with the vendor, we agreed we would find other options to produce non-standard color tiles and then reduce the demand to the vendor in steady increments. He took the vendor relationship and product management responsibilities. I took the production, operations, and logistics responsibilities.  We took a walk into the Pilot Plant to see what might be possible. 

The Pilot Plant was a series of disconnected operations designed for scientists and engineers to experiment, test, and develop new products. It was not a manufacturing facility, and was not designed to be. Upon review of the operating permits, we determined we could produce a limited amount of material on a temporary basis. Now we had to figure out how to produce products safely and effectively with our available resources.

The Customer Comes First

One Monday morning I visited with the technicians who were responsible for operations in the Pilot Plant. I reviewed the situation.  If we didn’t figure out a way to produce thirteen non-standard colors of tiles, we would lose valuable business from our loyal customers. Most of the technicians weren’t keen on trying to turn the Pilot Plant into a production facility, but they realized how important it was to keep customers happy. Some of the technicians volunteered to help me determine the best way to connect and run the disconnected processes in the Pilot Plant.

We decided to focus on the edge cutting, edge painting, and tile painting processes in the Pilot Plant. The prior processes, which included forming the board and cutting it to size, could be provided by one of the many manufacturing facilities in the Armstrong network. These facilities were set up to make large production quantities and these early process steps were efficient for them. The edge cutting and painting steps would differentiate the tiles and had to be well controlled, with low amounts of inventory. The large manufacturing facilities were not set up to run small production runs efficiently.

There were many separate areas in the Pilot Plant, but the key areas that we needed were located very close to each other:  paint mixing, edge cutting and painting, and overall tile painting and paint drying. These areas were not connected however, and we didn’t want people to have to physically transport the tiles through the line. Our first priority was to build and install temporary conveyers to flow materials through the line from beginning to end. Luckily our technicians were very creative and within days they had cobbled together the conveyers we needed.

The next step was to determine how to process the tiles safely and productively through the entire connected line. We had to determine the proper amount of people, the pacing, the supply of materials to the line, and the handling of finished product.

Timing is Everything

I took a small team of technicians and we decided the best way to design the process was to try it in many controlled experiments.  We gathered a bunch of scrap tiles to test and started loading them into the beginning of the process. “Be the tile” was our rallying cry. “Let’s walk the tile through the process and see what happens to it,” I said. We started at the beginning, the edge cutting and painting process. Three technicians were the loading crew. Two technicians positioned themselves at the end of the process as the unloading crew. They started putting one tile on the line at a time and quickly realized they couldn’t keep up with the speed of the line without adding one more resource, who brought full pallets of tiles to the line on demand. Think Lucy and Ethel on the famous Candy Factory episode of I Love Lucy.

Once we added the resource, the technicians were able to comfortably put a tile on the line every four seconds. They were very proud of themselves, but we quickly realized our short test wouldn’t be sustainable over long work shifts, with different people doing the work on the line. After much discussion, we agreed on loading a tile every five seconds. It doesn’t sound like much of a difference, but it could impact production output by 25%.  More importantly, it would ensure we were working as safely as possible.

Having confirmed the pacing at the front end of the process, we verified the other parts of the process could be optimized to this new rate. Then, we designed the quality control process and packaging station to meet the pacing requirements safely. We then built a logistics plan and operations schedule. Reaching out to the total Armstrong organization to get volunteers to help staff the line during these critical production runs, we had many volunteers, from administrative staff to vice-presidents to accountants. Everyone wanted to help out and ensure we didn’t disappoint our customers. 

The next few months, we produced the non-standard color tiles and met almost every order on time. More importantly, people who hadn’t worked together previously got an opportunity to do something special. We all rallied to protect the interest of our customers and the integrity of the business. It made our bonds stronger as an organization. It wasn’t apparent that we were producing these tiles in a different way and eventually we were able to outsource the orders to an Armstrong manufacturing facility. The demand for these non-standard color tiles and customer loyalty continues to grow. I am convinced it’s because of the special people who put the customer first and their normal duties second.

There is One Best Way

In 2019, Process Improvement Partners was asked to run a reliability Kaizen for a factory in Missouri. A month in advance of the event, I conducted a site visit and took a walk to the line to be improved. Cluttered, dirty, and lacking organization, the line was operating at extremely low levels of efficiency. There was an hourly production board and it was filled with red numbers, meaning production output was below target levels most of the time. Working with the sponsor, we aligned around efforts to improve safety and productivity of the operation using reliability and Lean principles. 

We built the charter for the event together. I coached the team leader around building the best team for the effort. We needed representation from all crews and the team members had to care about making the line better for everyone. I also advised to include some line mechanics and a few “Kaizen Rock Stars”. These were team members from other locations who had demonstrated their passion and willingness to make things better for everyone. Two weeks before the event kick-off, we had commitment from all team members.

On the morning of the first day of the event, I went around the room for team member introductions. We had operators from all four crews, two mechanics, one engineer, two supervisors, one operations manager, and two “Kaizen Rock Stars”. Half of the team had never been in a kaizen event, they weren’t sure what to think, and they were understandably skeptical.

After some initial training, we took a walk to the line to see what was happening and generate some improvement ideas to improve safety and reliability of the line. I directed the team to focus on equipment reliability, using the principles and techniques we had just reviewed. When we returned to the meeting room, we generated more than 100 improvement ideas. A vast majority of the ideas focused in two areas:  carton wrapping and container filling. The team agreed carton wrapping was the highest source of stress and downtime, with the container filler a close second. We decided to work on the carton wrapper first. To do this work, we had to shut the line down for a few hours. Knowing that we would be working on the container filler next, we asked the crew on shift to clean it during the downtime. 

Shifting Lanes

The conveyer leading to the carton wrapper had three lanes that product could utilize as it traveled to the wrapper. The wrapper had two lanes of products to be wrapped. I asked the operators if they ever utilized the third lane and they told me no and in the many years since the equipment was installed, they had never seen the third lane utilized.  This third lane was in the way of their work when they had to interact with the equipment. The next questions I asked were, “Can we remove the third lane? Are we expecting we will need it in the future?” All team members agreed it would be best to remove the lane and we did. 

Next, we found the center of the carton wrapper and balanced both lanes around the center. It turns out the equipment was ¾” off-center, which doesn’t sound like much, but helped to explain why products were getting jammed in the carton wrapper. Finally, we realigned the lanes leading into the carton wrapper to match the newly balanced lanes inside the wrapper. When we sent product through this newly balanced portion of the line, it flowed smoother than anyone on the team had ever experienced. I knew they were becoming believers in the methods I was demonstrating.

There were many more improvements to be made on the carton wrapper, and a portion of the team stayed with those efforts, while the rest of the team turned their attention to the container filler. Newly cleaned, we were able to see that some of the parts in the filler didn’t look like they matched the other parts. Some of the parts from one product size were mixed in with parts from a different product size and some of the parts were in a state of disrepair. All of this had been hidden by the coating of dust and dirt. Once we saw this, we knew what we had to do:  Put the proper sized parts in the filler and repair the broken parts. Over the next few days, the team made numerous improvements to the carton wrapper, product filler, and other components of the line. 

Analysis Over Emotion

On the fourth day, we had to determine the best way to run the line, utilizing all of the improvements and standardizing efforts across all crews. This can be challenging, as most operators think their way is the best way. I took the team leader aside and reviewed the strategy for this next effort.  We would take all of the operators and attempt to come to an agreement on how to best run the line. There were so many changes and improvements to the line in the first three days, none of the earlier procedures would be relevant to our newly improved processes.

The operators didn’t see it that way. Two in particular, let’s call them Sue and Jane, thought their way was best. The other two operators didn’t necessarily agree with Sue and Jane, but weren’t willing to argue as passionately as Sue and Jane. After 30 minutes of describing their methods, both Sue and Jane agreed that their methods were essentially the same. We had to commit to one method we could use to train others and hold them accountable to. I asked Sue and Jane to demonstrate their methods separately. The other two operators and team leader would review both approaches using two methods of analysis:  spaghetti diagram and timing. The spaghetti diagram measures the distance a person travels when they’re doing their work. Timing tells us the impact of the work as measured in minutes and seconds.  We all agreed to let the analysis rather than emotion tell us the best way to proceed.

A Natural Approach

Sue and Jane were advised to work at a comfortable pace, without putting themselves in a safety risk.  It was more important to learn the best way and do it in a way that would make it easy to train others. The observers were to identify any further improvements from this analysis. Sue went first, confident she had the best way to accomplish the work.  She went in a clockwise fashion around the line, performing all of the required tasks. On a couple of occasions, she overlooked some of the changes. We stopped the clock to remind her of the new method. We restarted the clock when she utilized the new methods. She finished in under 25 minutes, satisfied her way was best.

Jane went next and worked in a counterclockwise fashion around the line. As she did her work, she followed the new steps in an efficient and stress-free manner.  She didn’t seem to have to walk very far to accomplish any next steps and also didn’t forget any steps. It looked so simple and natural.  Fourteen minutes later she was finished.  The team was surprised and excited. They didn’t think there would be so much difference. Sue had to admit Jane’s method was the better one. This was a breakthrough. All four operators would need to represent the new method to their co-workers when they returned to their normal jobs. If not, all of the great work of the team would be wasted.

At the report out the following day, Sue and Jane admitted to the audience they had to be open to thinking differently about how they did their work and there is always a better way to get things done. The team was proud of their accomplishments and the plant had a much more safe and reliable process than before. One month later, I received a text from the team leader. He shared a photo of the hourly production board, filled with green numbers.

Ownership at the Right Level

I was Lean Champion for the global technology team at Armstrong World Industries for many years. During that time, I supported teams of technicians, scientists, engineers, project managers, and the leadership team across four different departments.  I had the good fortune to assist teams in their efforts to develop and launch new products, deploy capital equipment, and build factories all over the world. All departments had access to the Pilot Plant to support their efforts when necessary.

The Pilot Plant was a series of disconnected processes which had the resources and capabilities to test new materials, products, processes, and other ideas in a controlled way. Information gleaned from tests and trials was utilized in the effective delivery of projects and other development efforts. Each of the processes in the Pilot Plant had an owner, who was responsible for the care and safety of the process. The owner would also try to schedule the process to allow it to be utilized effectively and to keep wait times to a minimum. All process owners were the technicians who were most familiar with the operation of their process. Although they were at the lowest level of the group, they were very proud of their equipment and took ownership to keep things safe for their customers.

As Lean Champion, I spent many hours in the Pilot Plant, learning about its capabilities and trying to understand how I might be able to help the technicians in their efforts to support the rest of the organization. It was during my early days in the Pilot Plant that I met a gentleman, we’ll call him Roy, who was lead technician. He had just taken on the leadership role for the Pilot Plant, responsible for the overall effectiveness and operations. Having worked in one of Armstrong’s factories prior to his arrival at the corporate center, he had vast equipment knowledge and some leadership experience.

A Source of Frustration

Before taking over as lead technician, Roy worked in the Pilot Plant as a process owner and participated in the annual Pilot Plant clean-up. This was a multi-day effort by all technicians at the end of the year. They would go through all of the materials, supplies, and equipment throughout the plant and clean out the clutter and reorganize things in as safe and productive manner as possible. All development and testing in the Pilot Plant would be delayed during this time, as all technicians were busy cleaning things up and trying to make sense of what they had.

None of the technicians liked the annual clean-up process because they knew it wouldn’t take long for things to go back to the way they were prior to the clean-up. Roy expressed his frustration to me more than a few times. Once he became lead technician, he was even more frustrated and wanted to do something about it. My first suggestion to Roy was that he should discuss his frustration with his manager and gauge his support for Roy’s efforts. Roy did this, but seemed just as frustrated. Upon further discussion with Roy, I found out his manager was supportive of his efforts, but didn’t offer solutions Roy thought he could implement without direct assistance from his manager. He really wanted his manager to tell everyone to clean up after themselves.

Over the next few months, I facilitated 5S (Sort, Set in Order, Shine, Standardize, Sustain) events in the Pilot Plant to support Roy’s efforts to make areas safer and more productive for everyone. The few area owners who had completed 5S events had a strong managing system to keep their areas in top shape. The other 30 or so areas did not, so clutter and disorganization was prevalent everywhere else in the Pilot Plant. Roy was getting more and more frustrated.

Turning the Corner

One Monday morning, following the weekly technician meeting in the Pilot Plant, Roy stopped me on my way back to my office. “Adam, I’m really frustrated,” he said. “My manager won’t hold everyone accountable to keep the Pilot Plant organized and safe. He tells them it’s their responsibility, but doesn’t do anything about it when they’re not compliant.  What can I do?” “Roy,” I said, “Who’s the leader of the Pilot Plant?” “I am,” he said. “Well, as leader, you have every right to set expectations and hold accountability. You are the operations manager; your boss is the plant manager. The plant manager needs you to get your operations in order. Let me help you do that.”

Over the next few weeks we built our strategy for putting the Pilot Plant in order. Our strategy included: setting clear expectations for all areas of the Pilot Plant, redefining responsibilities for all area owners (not just the areas that had been 5S’d), developing a weekly leadership walk (Gemba walk), and creating visual management to hold all area owners accountable. We mounted a large white board in the main meeting room and put lines and names on it, ready to explain it to the technicians at the next technician meeting.

The next Monday morning, we introduced the new strategy for making the Pilot Plant the safest, most productive place possible.  The technicians listened with keen interest and asked many questions as Roy described the changes. They were skeptical that there would be any change in behavior of the scientists, engineers, or managers when they used the spaces in the Pilot Plant. Then Roy explained the white board, which he called the “Area Owner” board. On it were over 30 Pilot Plant locations with the corresponding name of the area owner and a space for a date to be written. At the first of every month, a red magnet would be placed for each location, signaling the owner hadn’t yet met certain monthly requirements. Once those requirements were met, the Area owner would replace the red magnet with a green magnet.   The Area Owner would write in the date the requirements were met. At the beginning of the next month, all magnets were set back to red.

The technicians were furious. They thought those red magnets made them look like they weren’t doing a good job and didn’t want any part of the new system. I jumped in and explained it was a very visual and urgent way to show what areas weren’t yet compliant and who might need help. The system wasn’t a reflection of the specific area owner, unless he or she hadn’t made the effort to meet the requirements or ask for help. We felt if we could get all areas to green every month, we wouldn’t need the annual cleanup, which everyone hated.

A Delicious Incentive

At this point, the technicians started to buy-in and support the idea, but they were still skeptical that some of the area owners would be motivated to get to green every month. I knew I needed to provide incentive. I said, “The first month we get all areas to 100%, I’ll buy every area owner lunch and we’ll celebrate!”  That got their attention. I then described the design of the management walk:  We would take a selection of managers of the scientists and others who used the Pilot Plant and tour all areas, looking for areas where we could reinforce the need for compliance to the requirements.  We would do this every week and sign off to show we had and we were just as accountable as the technicians.

For the next few months, I attended every Monday morning technician huddle, and reinforced the new systems and encouraged the area owners to get their areas to green before the end of the month.  One Monday, late in the third month of the “Area Owner Challenge”, there was only one technician whose area was still red. Almost to a person, the technicians pressured him to get his requirements done and make sure Adam would buy them lunch!  They did it in a fun way, but I knew they were serious. I knew our system was working at last.

Over the next months, the technicians hit 100% compliance almost every month, and by the end of the year there was no need for the annual cleanup.  Pride in the Pilot Plant grew. In the following years, the Pilot Plant was bench-marked many times. Not because of the technology, but because of the strong ownership and pride and systems that allowed new products and projects to be delivered in the safest and most productive way possible.

Training in the Moment

Process Improvement Partners was invited to help a gummy vitamin manufacturer reduce their changeover time.  Walking through the process with the sponsor, we felt that we could attain a sustainable 50% reduction in time, while improving the safety of the process and engaging the team with a winning attitude.

After the charter was developed, we identified the winning team of participants.  This included people who work in the process, those who manage the process, and others who were quite interested in helping the team win.

First Day Skepticism

On the first day of the Kaizen, the team was joined by a group of others from management and support groups, who were very interested in what was about to happen.  After some introductions, those in the room voiced their concerns about the ability of the team to reduce time in half without substantial capital investment or significant training.  As I had been through many of these sessions before with continued success, I assured them we wouldn’t have to spend much money and we would be able to train everyone properly by the end of the week.  After all, we only had a week to accomplish our goals.   I told the team that every team before them was able to achieve the 50% goal and I knew they would too.  Most in the room looked like they thought it wouldn’t be possible, but they were supportive of our efforts. 

The average changeover time for the past year was 4 ½ hours, so our goal would be to safely complete the same type of changeover in 2 ¼ hours.  After some training in Lean concepts, we walked out to the factory floor and observed the crew on shift complete a changeover.   This changeover took 5 hours and 32 minutes, a full hour longer than our baseline.  After the changeover was complete, I brought the team into the meeting room to share their observations and ideas for improvement to the changeover.  At the end of a very long first day, the team had four prioritized improvement efforts to work on during the morning of the next day.  We went out to dinner to unwind and continue the discussion.  Even though it was a very long day, everyone seemed excited about what might be possible.

On the morning of day 2, the team started to make changes, based on their observations and ideas.  The plan for day 2 was to implement as much as possible in the morning, and then the team would conduct the changeover in the afternoon.  This time, the crew on shift would observe the team, rather than the other way around.  Some basic organization, visualization, and minor equipment improvements were made before lunchtime.  We were now ready to see what would happen.

The plan was to conduct the changeover after lunch and then review our results and ideas following the changeover.  I knew this might make the day even longer than the first, but this was critical for team learning and new improvement ideas.

The team completed the day 2 changeover in 5 hours and 1 minute and looked really tired and uninterested in reviewing things in the meeting room.  Undeterred, I brought them together and got their immediate feedback.  One of the team members pointed out that while the individual team members had simpler and safer methods to do their work, there was no real coordination of effort between the six team members doing the work.  This was a revelation, and he was energized to build something that we could try out the next day.  The team was spent and went home to rest and hopefully relax a bit.

The next morning, there was a flurry of activity, as the team came together to develop ways to coordinate efforts across all people doing the work.  A large white board was developed to track the activities of the team members and show status before the changeover was to start as well as during the changeover.  It wasn’t completed before our next test, but we decided to start using it in the afternoon.

Using the new ideas from the morning, the team completed the changeover in 3 hours and 17 minutes.  Even though they were still an hour away from their goal, they were extremely excited about what might be possible.  None of them remembered completing a changeover of this complexity in less than 3 hours and 30 minutes.  I told them that on day 4, we would be asking the crew, not the team, to try the new changeover procedure.  This meant that we not only had to complete the improvements, but also have to train others in our new approach.  Now the team was nervous. How would they train people who had never seen our new procedure in such a short amount of time?  I assured them that we would be just fine.  They all went home a bit skeptical, but energized.

Training in an Hour

The team came into the meeting room on day 4, wondering how they would be able to transfer all the changes to the crew to use that afternoon.   I told them we would do it in a very simple process: “Tell, Show, Do.”  This means each team member would be paired up with a crew member one hour before the changeover preparation was to begin.   They would first tell their partner about the new procedure.  Next, they would show how to do the procedure.  Finally, they would have their partner demonstrate their understanding of the procedure.  This technique would bring out questions and full understanding in a short amount of time.  By describing the process early in the morning, the team could think about it as they were working on their improvements.

By lunchtime, all the major improvement work was complete.   The board was upgraded to show status of each task for each of the six crew members in “swim lanes”.  There was a timeline from two hours before the changeover was to start (preparation steps) to three hours from the changeover start, in 30-minute segments.  The idea was to complete every preparation task before the line stopped running and every changeover task assigned in less than three hours across all six swim lanes.  Every task had a red magnet on it, and when complete, it was to be switched with a green magnet.  If one of the crew members was still red in their swim lane while another crew member was green, he or she could be asked to help the crew member who was behind. 

We brought the team and the crew together just before the training was about to begin.  We thanked them and told them the team was doing their best to make this the safest, easiest changeover possible, and they would be pairing up and showing them all of the new changes.  We asked them to try everything in the new way, in as safe a manner as possible, and we would get their feedback following the changeover.  If they thought anything was unsafe, they should determine a safe way to complete the task and we would make the appropriate changes afterwards.

The one-hour training started and everyone paired up and walked around discussing and trying the changes.  The white board was placed prominently in front of the supervisor office, and everyone could see what was happening.

It’s OK to Ask for Help

After the training was complete, the two-hour changeover preparation began.  This preparation was being done while the line was still running.  Crew members had to watch the line as well as complete their preparation steps.  Team members shadowed the crew members and coached them in the new procedure, but they were not allowed to do the work for them.

Back at the board, the team leader and shift coordinator were turning some of the red magnets green, as preparation tasks were completed.  I walked up to the board and asked them what they were seeing.  They weren’t really sure what I meant.  I pointed out one of the swim lanes had many green magnets, meaning one of the crew members was an hour ahead of everyone else.  One of the other swim lanes had all red magnets and was falling behind.  I asked them what they thought they should do.  They were unsure, so I pointed out that Green could help Red catch up.  I left them, hoping they would take the initiative to get help for Red.  Three minutes later, I noticed they hadn’t left the board to get help, and Green was getting further ahead of Red.  I returned to the board and asked them if they were going to get help for Green.  This time, they said they would.  I left them but didn’t go far.  I noticed they weren’t making any moves or approaching crew members to get help for Red.  I went back to the board and said, “let’s go see Green and ask her to help Red.” 

They grudgingly walked with me up to the mezzanine, where Green was working.  I introduced myself to Green and told her she was doing great and was way ahead of schedule.  Then I asked her if she would be willing to help Red, who was getting pretty far behind.  She said she would be happy to, and walked with us to Red, who was appreciative to get help.  The light bulb went off for the team leader and shift coordinator and they started to make more moves to drive Red tasks to Green.

Back at the board, every time a red magnet was switched to green, the team leader and shift coordinator would high-five each other.  There was no way the team would fail now.  One of our other team members found a large monitor and placed it in the window of the supervisor office and started a timer for everyone to see how long the changeover was taking.

As we approached the two-hour mark, it became apparent we might meet our goal.  People started to get really excited and the shift coordinator was making all of the moves he could to ensure a win for the team.  At two hours and five minutes there was a bunch of cheering and clapping.  Everyone thought they were done.  It was a false alarm, however, as the Quality Department had not yet signed off on the new product being produced.  One of the team members went to the Quality Office to get a representative to look at the product and do the appropriate tests required.  At two hours and ten minutes, all of the approvals were received.  There was a roar of applause and a bunch of hugging all over the place.  I doubt that has ever happened before in the plant.

We brought the team and the crew back into the meeting room to get their feedback.  To a person, they didn’t think what we had done was possible, but now realized it was.  They realized the importance of coordination, help, and coaching.  The team decided they would train all of the other crews in this way, to ensure full understanding and buy-in. 

On the day of the report-out, each team member admitted they didn’t think we would be able to reach our goals. It was hard for me not to say, “I told you so!”  If I were to pick the most important changes they made, it would be the coordination and visualization of effort.  Everyone knew who needed help and what they had to do to win.

Who says you can’t speed up innovation?

After a three-year stint as Operations Manager in a plant in Oregon, I was offered the opportunity to return to the Innovation Group for Armstrong World Industries, a ceiling tile manufacturer.  I was to support a team of scientists and technicians, and help them improve their processes and speed up the time to launch new product ideas.

In my first few weeks, I spent time observing the processes the team used to come up with new ideas and bring them to fruition.  Each scientist, with the help of assigned technicians, would develop their own approved idea, using whatever development technique they chose to use.  Every so often, their manager would meet with them to review status and see if there was any help needed to drive progress.  More often than not, the scientist would not ask for any additional help.  Even less likely was the chance the scientist would go to their manager when they were stuck and needed help.  Things took a long time to complete. 

I also took a look at the innovation spaces and testing centers that supported the Innovation Team.  Disorganized and disconnected, these spaces became available on a first come, first served basis.  Scientists often had to wait for testing assistance, as there was no clear way to prioritize or schedule work in the spaces. 

Pilot Plants

I knew I could bring some value to this group, as long as I had someone to sponsor me.  I was new to this area and had to build credibility.  Luckily, I found a manager who was frustrated with the amount of time things took and was open to trying something new.

The first thing we decided to do was pick a target area in the testing spaces (our Pilot Plant) to organize, with the idea of improving productivity and responsiveness for testing.  We picked a small team and used a 5S (Sort, Set in Order, Shine, Standardize, Sustain) event to improve the area and named an Area Owner.  The owner would reserve the area for the scientists and technicians and ensure work was prioritized properly.  This first owner had to have strong leadership backing and the internal fortitude to stand behind her choices.  Luckily, our first owner had both.

This first 5S effort brought immediate and visible positive results to the Pilot Plant.  Over the next few months (and years), more and more areas became organized using 5S and strong leadership support.  Work flowed through the Pilot Plant in a much quicker way.  Strong Area Owners ensured the highest priority work would be done before lesser value work.  If anyone tried to break the rules, the owners knew they had support for their efforts to control the work flow.

Now that we had simplified and streamlined the testing work, we needed to come up with a way to make the development work more visible.  As I stated earlier, scientists liked to do their own thing and then present their inventions and discoveries in their own time.  Because of that, there was no clear way to assess progress and provide help or support during the process.

With the support of the manager, we approached the Innovation Director with this idea:  Have a weekly meeting of all scientists and technicians to give them the opportunity to discuss their progress and talk about next steps and any help they might need.  The Director was intrigued, but was unsure how the group would react to “structure”.  He told us, “You can’t schedule invention.”  My reply was, “Maybe you can’t, but you can schedule the steps on the way to invention.”  If nothing else, the scientists would have an opportunity to share their discoveries with the group.  He thought it was worth a try and decided to start the following week.

Accelerating Innovation

The first weekly Innovation Group Huddles were unstructured on purpose.  The Innovation Director asked each scientist to talk about what they were working on.  Some of the scientists were willing to do so and would take the time to describe the intimate details of their work.  Others had little to say, and even with prodding didn’t seem willing to share.  Although it was frustrating at the beginning, we realized this was the first time the team had the opportunity to discuss their efforts in this way, and agreed to keep the process going for a while to see what might happen.

About three months after starting the Innovation Huddle, a scientist was talking about his work and admitted he was a bit stuck on how to test one of his ideas.  For the first time, another scientist spoke up and said, “I worked on something similar three years ago and I would be happy to share my data and results with you, if you think that would help.”  All of the sudden, the entire group opened up and realized why they were there.  They could share and learn from each other.  Scientists love to share and learn, and now they knew this was their forum to do so.

Over the years, the Innovation Group Huddle became more visible, more engaging, and focused on helping each scientist and technician in their efforts.  After four years, the time to market, from initial idea to launch was reduced from eighteen to ten months.  The portfolio of new products developed by the Innovation team more than doubled from $150 million to $380 million.

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.

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.  “Speaking,” I said.  “This is …aah… Mr. C., we’re having some trouble at our Northern toy factory.  If we don’t get all of our orders out in December, we’re going to have some really disappointed customers.  Can you help us?” he asked.  “Of course, just tell me when you need me, Mr. C.”  He let out a big belly laugh and said, “Right now!” 

When you get an urgent call like that, you do whatever it takes to respond.  So, I packed a bag, my extra socks and my warm hat just in case, booked a flight, called an Uber, and got ready for my adventure in the North.  Twenty minutes later a long red car pulled up with the oddest-looking driver I ever saw.  He had pointy ears, said his name was Brucie, and that he would be taking me directly to the factory.  I told him I had already booked my flight, but he said I wouldn’t need it, he had a way of getting me there sooner.

We started talking and he told me how the workers had been getting behind at the factory due to more issues than they could handle.  As we talked, I felt myself drifting off to sleep.  When I woke up, I was at the North Pole.  “Holy Smokes, the North Pole!  Glad I packed my extra socks and hat, I’m going to need them,” I thought.

Assessing the Situation

Brucie took me to the Big Guy’s office.  We embraced like old friends.  He told me I was on the Naughty List for a few reasons I won’t elaborate on here.  If I could help them resolve their issues, I might wind up back on the Nice List.  I told him I would do my best, but first we would need to take a walk through his factory to see what was going on.

Brucie led the way.  It turns out he was the operations manager, and he wanted to see what I might be able to offer.  As we walked through the factory, I saw piles of work in process inventory.  I could barely see the workers themselves.  They could see me, however.  Every time I passed a worker, I would hear a giggle.  Apparently, I looked a bit out of place in their factory.  My ears weren’t pointy, I didn’t have bells on the ends of my safety shoes, and they seemed to know why I was on the Naughty List.

Brucie told me his workers were making mistakes and when they asked for help, no one could hear them, because all of the piles of inventory muffled their voices.  He also felt he needed a way to see progress during the day and assess whether or not he was on track to meet all of the orders.  The Big Guy looked concerned.  He didn’t want to disappoint any of his customers and he felt that his workers were losing hope that they would be able to complete all their work in time.

I spoke with a number of the workers on the tour.  To a person … no, to an elf, they seemed worried.  They knew they had to complete their work, but didn’t know what to do about it.  They wanted to help, but didn’t know how.  They were working as hard as they could, but just didn’t know if it would be enough to be ready for the big delivery.  There was also something somber about the atmosphere in the plant.  It seemed like elves should be having more fun doing their work, but the energy level and joy was not there.  I was hoping they weren’t considering striking.

After the tour, we sat down for a lunch of milk and cookies to discuss what could be done.  I told Brucie and the Big Guy that I could facilitate a session with 6 of the production workers, Brucie, Kittie from HR, and two maintenance workers that would solve the problem in three days.  They looked skeptical, but were willing to commit the time and resources.  This was way too important to shortcut.  We had to solve the problem.

The Kaizen Begins

The next morning, the Big Guy kicked off the session with inspiring words of encouragement and faith in his team.  He knew his team wouldn’t fail and that I would be able to help them do what needed to be done.  It’s great to have such outstanding leadership and support and also knowing that my sponsor could get me off the Naughty List.

The Big Guy left, and I spent a few hours teaching Lean principles and techniques to the team.  Instead of Power Point slides, I used Flipcharts made of taffy.   Once we finished with a sheet, I’d hand it to the team to munch on.  Elves are little, but they really like the sweet stuff.  And boy can they eat!  Early in the discussion I got some pushback from Kittie, who said, “We’ve been doing things the same way for centuries, what makes you think you can help us solve our problems with this Lean stuff?”  I assured her and the rest of the team they would look at their situation differently using Lean principles and I had confidence in their spirit, enthusiasm, and creativity.  I also told them I believed in them and knew we were going to do the right things to win.  Plus, I had to get off of the Naughty List!

After that they asked many good questions and were able to make a connection to the problems they were facing in the factory.   They realized some of these principles might help and translated some Lean terms into Elfish, so that the others in the factory would understand what we were trying to do.  We then took a walk through the factory to generate ideas to improve the situation.  The team members were really getting into it, even Kittie.  They started to understand how to apply what they learned in the classroom to their situation.  When the team returned to the meeting room, we took a break to have some hot cocoa and peppermint sticks.  I don’t normally eat like this, but it seemed like the right thing to do and it was really yummy!

After our break, the team prioritized all of their ideas into three major categories:

1.       Improve the flow of work

2.       Visual management to assess progress of the production lines

3.       Managing systems to provide help immediately to anyone who needs it

I broke the team into three sub-teams and they got to work in the afternoon.  I have worked with many Kaizen teams in my career, but I have never seen any team get as much work done in a few hours as Team Elf.  It was almost by magic. By late afternoon, each sub-team had put together some really solid work plans and were ready to implement their solutions the next morning. 

That evening, we had a team dinner at the most beautiful and coldest restaurant I had ever been to.  The Big Guy and his wife joined us, along with some of the other staff, including Dancer, Rudolph, and Olive, the other Reindeer.  During dinner we talked about all we had done that day and what we hoped to accomplish by the end of the Kaizen event.   There was much laughing and toasting.  Stories were told about me I had forgotten about from my early childhood.  How did they know about my adventures at the Rolling Stones concert or that my first-grade teacher used to love my piano playing or that her name was Mrs. Simonds? 

I must have gained ten pounds that evening, as nothing I ate could have been healthy.  After dinner, I was shown to my room for the night.  It was cozy and small, but I felt right at home.  It’s very cold at the North Pole, but there was a warm fire in the hearth.  Good thing I packed my favorite footie PJs.  After a cup of the best hot cocoa I ever had, I drifted off to sleep.  That night I dreamt about Lean Toy Delivery, figuring out ways the Big Guy could get down chimneys in a safer, more efficient manner.    

Implementing Solutions

We kicked off the morning of the second day with a few Christmas carols and other elf favorites.  Rudolph came in to see what was going on and used his nose to act as percussion.  You could feel the team’s optimism, energy, and excitement.  I reviewed some Lean concepts then set the team off into their working groups to implement their ideas.  I reminded them that it was helpful to get others’ input and even utilize their help, just in case it would be needed.  Everyone in the factory was a Kaizen team member, they just didn’t know it.   We were going to do everything possible to win.

In the middle of the morning, I noticed the “Improve Flow” team had rearranged the workstations in the factory.  Instead of one elf building hundreds of the same toy assemblies before moving it to the next elf, he or she would build one sub-assembly and pass it on to the next elf to do their part.  This improved flow, identified quality issues more quickly, and reduced the piles of inventory.  Everyone could now see each other, help each other, and hear each other.  They looked so much happier and started singing Elfish songs – the type of songs that stay in your head and can’t escape until another song takes its place.  I’m hearing one now, I kid you not!

The “Visual Management” team put together some large display boards, made out of white chocolate.  These boards showed the hourly production results with targets and actuals listed.  Each line leader was responsible to post his/her team’s results.  If they met the hourly target, they put a green spearmint candy on the board.  If they missed the hourly target, they put a red cinnamon candy on the board.  I noticed that the first time a line hit its hourly target, there was a spontaneous cheer, laughter, and dancing from the workers.  It was contagious, and I found myself dancing with them.  I hope no one filmed it and put it on their social media site, Elfbook.  It would be too embarrassing!

The “Managing Systems” team installed pull cords at all of the work stations.  If someone was falling behind or had a question, they could pull their cord and a yellow Gummy Bear light would flash at their work station.  They would get help immediately to get them back on track or answer their question.  The team also created an hourly, daily, and weekly audit to ensure everyone understood and followed the new process.  The line leader was to do the hourly audit, Brucie was to do the daily audit, and the Big Guy did the weekly audit.   They made the audit fun by giving out random treats to the workers as they walked around the factory.

By the end of the second day, I could see the team was well on their way to solving the problem and making all of their customers happy.   The team was energized and excited about what they were doing.  They had a few more things they wanted to do, but I sent them home for the evening, confident they would get it done on day three.  I went back to my room and tried to relax.  It was happening so fast and there were so many customers to serve.  Would we make it?  Would I get off of the Naughty List?

On day three, the team came in and got right to work.  They put together a training plan for all of the workers in the factory.  Instead of writing work instructions, they wrote songs to sing while the elves were working.  Each song contained the information they needed to make all of the toys in the safest, most efficient, and highest quality manner.  Elves love to sing, so this was a brilliant solution to an age-old problem.  I don’t know if my other Kaizen teams would be willing to use this method in the future, but you never know what might work.  Kittie even admitted she was impressed by the solutions of the team and really believed these improvements would work and save Christmas.

The Report Out

After filling ourselves with snickerdoodle cupcakes and chocolate milk for lunch, the team went out into the factory and presented their efforts to the rest of the elves.  The Big Guy spoke first.  He started by telling everyone what a great job they were doing and how important their efforts were to their customers.  He then gave his support to the team who had worked so hard for these three days and handed the presentation to the team.  The team reviewed and demonstrated all of the changes they had made.  Finally, they sang the songs they had written and invited the other elves to sing along.  There was a joyous sound throughout the factory as everyone started singing and following the musical work instructions.  After the singing was over, the team high-fived, hugged, danced, and clapped for each other.  The Big Guy even gave me a hug.  He could have crushed me, but I felt warm all over.  It was the nicest recognition I ever received. 

I was relieved and exhausted when it was all over and I was ready to go home.  My Uber showed up, with Brucie as driver again.  We talked about all of the great work of the team as he drove me back, and once again I drifted off to sleep.  When I woke up, I was home in my bed.  Was it all just a dream? 

On Christmas morning, I came downstairs to get breakfast and saw a candy cane taped to an envelope with my name on it on the kitchen table.  I ate the candy cane and opened the envelope.  Inside was a note that said, “Adam, thank you for your help at the factory.  We were able to make all of our deliveries this year and think we should be OK for years to come.  Love, the Big Guy.”  This was great news, but I was still wondering about one more thing.  I walked into my office and on my white board was a note that said: “And yes, you’re off the Naughty List … for now!”

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!