How to Create and Sustain Successful Continuous Improvement Teams
Case Application
How to Create and Sustain Successful Continuous Improvement Teams
Manufacturing plant managers and Lean manufacturing experts from Honda America, Irving Oil Refinery and elsewhere share their advice for those serious about continuous improvement. The process is not always easy, they say, but the results include energized, empowered and committed employees who know they are part of helping their companies prosper.
Deming says ‘your system is perfectly designed to give you the results you get.’ My experience so far completely agrees with Deming in this respect,” says Mark Porter, Operator Driven Reliability (ODR) project manager for Irving Oil Refinery in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada, referring to quality management pioneer W. Edwards Deming. Because that’s true, Irving Oil Refinery set out to change its systems a little more than a year ago to create a culture of innovation and continuous improvement. Like hundreds of other plants that have embarked on continuous improvement journeys, Irving Oil has had its share of
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The process is not always easy, they say, but the results include energized, empowered and committed employees who know they are part of helping their companies prosper. Says Mary Isbister, president of Mequon, Wis.-based GenMet Corp., “The real ‘aha’ moment came when we realized that by becoming Lean, we had actually doubled our sales and cut our lead-times in half with the same number of people and the same manufacturing space.”
Porter says that although his company has not had formal Toyota training in Lean manufacturing, his ODR group has selected key kaizen (continuous improvement event) features such as “analyzing the process for waste, which could be in the form of material, effort, motion, etc., and using 5S key concepts for housecleaning our process units.” 5S is a workplace methodology that has become part of Lean manufacturing. The original five Japanese words start with the letter ‘s’ and translate into English as sorting, straightening, systematic cleaning, standardizing and sustaining.
Operations has been the primary focus of Irving Oil’s continuous improvement activity, with the objective of combining operations and maintenance activities for mutual benefit. Already, there have been many improvements in the pilot area, “and these improvements are not over yet,” says Porter.
For example, when they applied the 5S concepts (or what they call “housekeeping”) to their processing units, Porter says the following things occurred: “Our operators (we call them ‘facility technicians’ on our site), became aware of the new 5S standard, and then became aware of a new standard of housekeeping. This resulted in a work request survey, which produced over 400 proactive work requests for our pilot area. Our refinery leadership team made sure funding was available to deal with this large influx of unexpected maintenance work. The facilities technicians saw 5S support from our leadership team, and have begun to believe things can change for the better. The result of this was a better relationship between the facility technicians and the leadership team, and improved asset preparedness as we move into severe winter weather.”
Porter adds that “the feedback cycle from shift teams to ODR and then from ODR back; prompt response and resolution of any issues; and [subsequent] improvements and innovation such as the creation of Asset Operating Procedures has resulted in ‘pull’ from the shift teams for ODR involvement versus ‘pushing’ our ODR products on the shift teams.”
Lean as support
The summary of Irving Oil’s accomplishments encompasses much of the advice plant managers recommend. While it’s completely possible to be successful at continuous improvement without embracing the specifics of the Lean manufacturing philosophy, for example, many manufacturers have found the methods, structure and abundant resources are critical to their success. GenMet’s Isbister says, “Lean principles turn traditional manufacturing from the 1950s and ‘60s on its head and at times can be counterintuitive. The concept of one-piece flow, for example, can be difficult to accept when the traditional method had been batch processing.” GenMet used the Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership as guides and mentors for its Lean journey.
John Hayden, manufacturing engineering manager at Siemens Industry’s West Chicago, Ill. plant has been involved with continuous improvement initiatives for 20 years. “It started when, as a plant manager of a different company, we needed to change from an individual kitting process to something that would accommodate a six-fold increase in production,” says Hayden. “I’m a math major, and I think that makes me a very process-oriented thinker. I said, ‘We’re going to have to do things differently—and I can’t do it on my own.’”
Hayden is responsible for the processes at the 375-person Siemens plant that assembles engineered-to-order electrical distribution products such ...
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