Page 259 - How To Implement Lean Manufacturing

Using the Pr escription—Thr ee Case Studies 237

• The facility was hampered by a large list of what most people would call
weaknesses. First the plant was old. Only three of the nine production lines
were less than three years old and none of the lines had the newest technologies
to produce their products. In addition, the process flow was poor. Most lines
were poorly balanced, set up in islands, and saddled with mismatched
production capacity. Larana Manufacturing was burdened with a dangerously
small technical staff and had only the basic quality skills in place with no Lean
experience at all. The one staff person who was earmarked to be the Lean
implementation manager quit, taking another position outside the company.
Their employee turnover was about 8 percent per month at the line operator
level. To make matters even worse, the plant was under severe financial
pressures. I will spare you the details, but the bottom line was this: If the plant
was to survive, they had to reduce operating costs. If that was not enough, their
home office exhibited a rather heavy hand in the business, sending represen-
tatives there almost constantly. With all this visibility, the “home office help”
was, more often than not, the “home office burden.”
• To top all of this off, the most severe problem was that senior management was
using old-world paradigms and were not Lean-thinking at all. Unfortunately,
they actually thought they were Lean thinkers. That proved to be a significant
burden to everyone as we embarked on this initiative.

Even with all these issues and obstacles, Larana Manufacturing did an exceptional
job of working on the precursors to Lean, generating huge financial gains for the facil-
ity. It is truly a story of “Lean done well … under some very grim conditions.”

How They Handled the Three Fundamental Issues of Cultural Change

Leadership
First, the movement toward cultural change was lead by the plant manager, Kermit,
who was in his first major manufacturing leadership position. Kermit had a degree in
engineering and was one of those natural problem-solvers that all companies look for
but few can find. In addition, even though he was quite young, 30 at the time, he had a
maturity beyond his years. This maturity was manifest both in his excellent judgment
and his wonderful rapport with the entire workforce. He turned out to be an outstand-
ing leader and directed the effort extremely well.
Together, we created a plan. He made sure all the training was delivered on time,
that all follow-up was done, and that he was actively involved in all aspects of the ini-
tiative. Leadership was a strong point for this effort,
and it was seen in the results.
“We are told that talent
Motivation
The motivation of the local workforce was not an creates its own opportunities.
issue. All while I was at this facility, I can say with But it sometimes seems that
certainty that the people were not only engaged in intense desire creates not only
the effort, they put in extra time to make it work. With its own opportunities, but its
all the distractions mentioned earlier, I was both own talents. ”
surprised and pleased with the level of employee Eric Hoffer
motivation.