Stories of Leadership, Lean, and Learning
Four years into the Lean Transformation at Armstrong World Industries, we started expanding Lean beyond our manufacturing operations. Forward-thinking leaders came up with an idea to help us better understand the customer experience from the inside. That is, we would conduct a “Customer Experience” Value Stream Mapping event, with the Gemba being the place where the customer interacted with our ceiling products the most – at their job site(s).
Read MoreI was the plant operations manager at Armstrong’s St. Helens, Oregon ceiling tile plant for three years. During my tenure, I was able to test and refine my management and continuous improvement approach on an operation that employed just under 100 people. I made many mistakes and I’d like to think I learned from each one of them. Sometimes, it took me a few times to learn from the same mistake.
Read MoreI was asked to create a discrete event simulation program for a planned factory expansion many years ago at Armstrong World Industries. What is that, you may ask? Basically, it’s a computer model of a process as it operates. It tries to mirror the behavior of the process, allowing the user to try various “what if” scenarios, such as adding capacity, downtime, resources, or speed. Having not built any simulations since my college days, I started doing research on options and whether or not I should try to build it myself or hire an outside vendor.
Read MoreI have been a small business owner for a few years. My company consists of me, my wife, my son, and my dog. I quickly learned I am responsible for everything that goes on. Nowhere is this more critical than customer acquisition.
Read MoreI created the Wheel of Sustainability many years ago. It’s been applied to many different industries and problems. On the first day of every Kaizen event I facilitate, I introduce the concept of the Wheel and help teams utilize it to sustain the solutions they create during the week.
Read MoreI was the operations manager at the St. Helens Oregon ceiling tile plant. I was responsible for the board forming and the fabrication units. It was here that I made a major rookie mistake that would stick with me throughout my career. Here’s the story.
Read MoreI was an early Lean practitioner at Armstrong World Industries. I’d spend a week with a production and maintenance team on a production line, helping them implement improvements to safety, quality, productivity, and customer service. At the end of the week, we’d give a tour of our changes. Because of our numerous successes, I was requested to help many of our manufacturing sites around the world.
Read MoreI was the Production Manager at the St. Helens Ceiling Tile plant for just under three years. I had always wanted to apply my continuous improvement mindset to a production organization. The VP of Manufacturing gave me a chance and I was determined to repay his trust and support with excellent results.
Read MoreOur fiberglass ceiling tile plant in Ohio got their board stock from another company (let’s call them Vendor X). They had some problems with the quality of some of the boards they received. As Vendor X was a critical partner, they decided to co-host a Kaizen event to eliminate the quality problems.
Read MoreDuring a virtual Lean summit, I met the CEO of a large furniture retailer from Florida. He had implemented Lean in his business for 15 years and was reaping the rewards of it. During our conversation, we talked about Kaizen events. He regretted his company had stopped conducting them a few years earlier and missed the energy, excitement, and engagement they created.
Read MoreRecently, I facilitated a Changeover Reduction (SMED) Kaizen event for a leading whiskey bottler and distiller at their facility in Indiana. Their goal was to reduce changeover time by 50 percent or more, while improving safety and not negatively impacting quality or customer service.
Read MoreHere’s a mining story from my time at Dal-Tile that involves blowing up a hill!
Read MoreIn 1995, Dal-Tile bought a majority stake in the American Olean Tile Company, who I was working for at the time. I was offered an Industrial Engineering position at their corporate headquarters in Dallas, Texas. Always up for a challenge, I moved my family, for the fourth time in my career, from Olean, New York.
Read MoreI spent the early part of my career working at Thomasville Furniture as an Industrial Engineer. I was responsible for supporting our veneer plant. One of the most valuable lessons I learned from my time in this role was a stark example of never, ever overlooking the simple or the obvious – in this case a single phone call could have saved 18 months of work from being. Here’s the story.
Read MoreI’m an engineer. Please don’t hold that against me. I’d like to believe I think logically, solving problems in a scientific way. I was taught this way as I was growing up. I assumed everyone else thinks this way. How wrong I was!
Read MoreI was the Business Team Manager for a vinyl flooring manufacturer in Lancaster PA. The business I was responsible for had been in a death spiral for many years. Consumer tastes had shifted, investments in the business had shrunk, and new product introductions were rare. The day I arrived at the plant I noticed a hand-made sign declaring the plant would be shut down in the next month or two. This was not very encouraging.
Read MoreIn 2014, I attended the Shingo Conference in Ohio. This was my first opportunity to network with and learn from continuous improvement practitioners and leaders from all over the world. I was determined to get as much learning and experience as possible.
Read MoreI was the Industrial Engineering manager at a ceramic tile factory in western New York for two years. During that time, I participated in many improvement projects. As a member of staff, I was responsible for various administrative and plant coverage duties. One of the most critical responsibilities I had was holiday coverage for the tile firing and curing process.
Read MoreI was the quality control manager for a ceiling grid factory in Maryland. In my first days at the plant, I observed that quality performance was minimally acceptable. There was a lot of room for improvement. I learned from my prior experience as a supervisor in Chicago to involve more people in the process and give them the information they needed to make proper quality decisions.
Read MoreMy first supervisory assignment was at a ceiling grid factory in Franklin Park Illinois. We had eleven operating lines at one end of the plant and a distribution center at the other end. It wasn’t unusual to produce grid in the morning and ship it out the same day. Sometimes, due to inefficiencies, we produced finished goods for customers whose trucks were waiting to be loaded on our shipping docks.
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