I was working with a team in New Jersey to implement Training Within Industry (TWI) on a critical household cleaner line. Plant leadership saw this as a key element in their strategy to improve overall line performance.
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Sometimes we don’t see what’s right in front of us. We just do what we do and deal with the problems that inevitably arise.
I facilitated a Kaizen event for a non-profit. Contributions were declining significantly. After taking a Gemba walk through the process, we identified the need to improve donor engagement. It was taking up to two months to acknowledge the highest value donations. No wonder donors were leaving in droves. Recognition was slow and not meaningful.
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We were building a ceiling tile manufacturing plant in Russia. Like most projects, the engineering team was directed to save money, as long as it didn’t negatively impact safety or productivity. As most were unfamiliar with doing business in Russia, they used their experience with known vendors to acquire equipment for the plant. If there wasn’t enough capacity to fill equipment needs, the project team worked with local consultants to identify the “best” options for equipment purchases.
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During a Kaizen event, teams identify projects to work on and then go off and do the work, hoping to return with a finished product. In my early experience, I allowed team members to work on their own. I hoped they would complete their work in a reasonable amount of time. It didn’t always turn out that way. Hope is not a plan.
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During my corporate career, we identified a critical gap in our safety training system. There wasn’t a good way to ensure traveling engineers, scientists, and technicians were compliant for annual safety training requirements. We had to get everyone immediately compliant and then develop a system for annual recertification.
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I was Lean Champion for the Global Technology group at a ceiling tile manufacturer for six years. During that time, I was responsible to train all new employees in Lean principles and techniques as they joined our group. The goal of this training was to help them understand what we were doing and how we applied Lean to our work. My aim was to generate interest and engagement around Lean. In the early years, things didn’t always go the way I expected.
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I reported to the Vice President of Global Technology for a ceiling tile company as Lean Champion. During my tenure, we kicked off our Lean transformation and established four Value Streams: Innovation (R&D), New Product Development, Capital Engineering, and Business and Operations Support. Each Value Stream Director guided efforts to deliver value to the internal and external customers who relied on their critical results.
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In 2011, I was asked to facilitate a changeover reduction Kaizen event at a ceiling tile plant in Florida. Most changeover reduction events have a goal of reducing time by 50%, while maintaining or improving quality and safety. In this case, the team was asked to reduce changeover time by 90%. This would be a challenge for the team and my ability to facilitate them to a solution.
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At a gummy vitamin manufacturer in Pennsylvania, I was asked to facilitate a team of mechanics responsible for supporting and maintaining the manufacturing operation. They had difficulty keeping their maintenance area compliant with strict food production regulations. Our goal was to develop a system to guarantee compliance, while improving their ability to service their customers.
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Of all the Kaizen events I have facilitated, there is nothing like 3P. It’s the most exciting, energizing, and exhausting way to create breakthroughs with a team. 3P stands for Production Preparation Process. The idea is to design a new product or process with the least amount of waste possible.
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In 1998, I was invited to Hoogezand, the Netherlands, to help a team make improvements to their ceiling tile production line. Little did I know it would be the longest Kaizen event in my life. I had been to the plant three months before and identified significant changeover time reduction potential. It was time to put my money where my mouth was. In advance of the trip, we identified members of the team and the need for an interpreter. I didn’t speak Dutch and still don’t. We’d have two weeks to work on the line and were to coordinate with the Production Manager any time we needed to shut the line down to work on or test the equipment.
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In 2010, Armstrong World Industries emerged from bankruptcy. A minority stake of the company was bought by a private equity firm. This firm knew there were many improvement opportunities and brought in consultants to help create a culture of continuous improvement across the global organization. Their approach was to hold many Kaizen events on a weekly basis, exposing as many people to the principles of Lean as quickly as possible.
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For many years, I have led, facilitated, or participated in hundreds of Kaizen events. During those events, people worked together in the same location to solve important problems. Sometimes team members travelled to the location of the event. Other times people weren’t able to travel to the event and the team carried on without identified experts. I loved the interaction and energy of those events, but wondered if there might be a way to hold an event that was as effective as putting people in the same room, but would be less difficult from a travel or logistical perspective.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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