footprint and product range. “It took a year or more to get the customer program fully rolling,” Senske says. “At first, customers were understandably skeptical, fearing that we’d take their time and then not listen to them. A few positive projects helped turn that around, and now customers line up to help us. At the end of the day, it has proved invaluable in making sure that customers drive product development.”

Pearson has adopted one-piece flow (the concept of moving one workpiece at a time between operations within a workcell) to its operations—an approach that seems especially fitting for a custom product environment. The company ended a practice of making components in batches, then inventorying them until needed. It took capital equipment away from functional centers, instead placing cutting, welding, turning and milling resources along specific lines. This allows operators to make parts for immediate incorporation into assemblies.

Capping Pearson’s approach to Lean is an infrastructure of rewards for participation. Supervisors can give any employee an instant cash award in recognition of improvement efforts. An advocate-of-the-month program singles out key contributors, and from those, one advocate of the year receives not only recognition but a substantial bonus. Performance reviews focus on improvement efforts and merit increases go to those who make continuous improvement a priority. Finally, nobody is let go as as the result of a Kaizen event. If a given improvement eliminates a job, that resource is reallocated to other areas—including the Kaizen office.

“The real key,” Senske says, “is to realize that you never are done—you never reach a point where you can say, ‘We’ve now implemented Lean.’ You can’t plateau because you think you’ve reached perfection. There’s too much change going on for that to happen.”        

For more information, search keywords “Lean Manufacturing” at www.automationworld.com.