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The Cutting Edge^™ January 2005

Manufacturing Strategies

Building a Culture of Improvement: Employees of a Somerset, MA Millwork Company Create Solid Foundation for Change
By Pat Wardwell, Continuous Improvement Manager, Greater Boston Manufacturing Partnership

(The WMMA is sponsoring two back-to-back in-plant workshops to be presented by Greater Boston Manufacturing Partnership experts. The topics to be covered are Value Stream Mapping and 5S. Tentative dates for the workshops are March 17 and 18. The workshops will be conducted in member plants. If you are interested in participating, please contact Harold Zassenhaus, Manufacturing Strategies Committee Coordinator, 301 652 0693; zemg@erols.com).

I recently attended a plant tour at the Somerset, MA site of North Atlantic Corporation (NAC), a regional manufacturer of stairs, doors, windows and other architectural products for the building trades. The tour, sponsored by the Greater Boston Manufacturing Partnership (GBMP), a non-profit organization committed to helping small to medium size organizations learn and apply continuous improvement thinking, showcased many of the successful process changes NAC employees have made in their work areas.

Based upon the Toyota Production System (TPS), continuous improvement philosophies and methods help organizations become more productive by cutting costs, increasing quality and reducing customer lead-time. People making small changes day after day to improve their work areas and processes are a central focus of continuous improvement. Over the past two years the employees of NAC have successfully leveraged continuous improvement concepts to make improvements that help them, their company and their customers.

THE PEOPLE ARE THE REAL SECRET

The best companies recognize that employees are the key to increased competitiveness and customer satisfaction. This is true because employees are the most knowledgeable about the many daily problems and issues that disrupt or slow down the processes that must coalesce to insure good flow of product to customers. When employees are trained, allowed and encouraged to find and reduce these value stream interruptions, they are also typically "fixing" the things that frustrate, slow down and hamper them as they go about their daily work!

At NAC, employees actively engaged in improving their workplace make all the difference. For example, Paul, an administrative employee who reviews and quotes customer jobs, showed the tour group some of the visual systems that he and his improvement teammates have set up for tracking and monitoring pre-production activities for customer jobs. After explaining the "before" and "after" conditions of the quote tracking process, Paul was quick to point out how much better the new system works and how simple it is to use. Like many other converts to continuous improvement, Paul told his visitors he was very skeptical in the beginning and was fairly certain that no real improvements would be made. But when Paul, his supervisor and other NAC employees on a cross-functional value stream improvement team took a hard look at the "old" process they saw many ways to streamline. The result is today, with their new system, quotes are done much faster (from 5 days or more, down to less than 1 day) and with a lot less effort.

Paul, an administrative employee, talks about improvements made in a back office process and how he and others have benefited.

In the Architectural Products production area, tour visitors met Jim, an experienced NAC door-crafter, who showed changes he and others had recently made to a piece of moulding equipment in their area. Before the changes, the noise from this machine annoyed several departments and it took 20 minutes to changeover the equipment. Jim and his team added a retractable hood to cut machine noise and implemented other changes that reduced machine changeover time from 20 to 3 minutes.

Jim explains how he and others reduced the changeover on this piece of moulding equipment from 20 minutes to 3.

MANY SMALL IMPROVEMENTS TOGETHER YIELD BIG RESULTS

During the tour we passed by a large bulletin board displaying several editions of NAC's continuous improvement newsletter. Each newsletter captures dozens of improvements made by employees. Included are pictures of the employees, snippets about their ideas and what the changes mean to NAC. Employee improvements run the gamut, from simple shadow boards for tools, to new fixtures for a CNC machine that reduce set-up and cycle time and also improve product quality. In several cases, employees worked together to make the documented improvements.

The continuous improvement steering team at NAC, another cross functional group of employees, created a newsletter to recognize and share the many small improvements being made. The steering team's intent is to send the message that "your ideas are important and make a difference". The number of different employee faces and the variety of ideas and improvements shown on the newsletter board is really impressive!

The steering team has also implemented a system whereby supervisors are encouraging and helping to bring forth ideas from all the employees in their areas. These ideas are presented to management on a monthly basis.

So what's do you get when you combine all these small, people-based improvements? NAC shared the following metrics from their CI efforts with tour guests:

Rough Mill and lumber control

• Reduced Raw Material inventory by 66%, freeing cash and space and reducing handling activities
• Eliminated RF gluing defects and reduced setup time, cutting cost and time from the gluing process

Custom Window and Door value stream:

• 30% increase in Productivity
• Custom doors lead-times cut 50%
• Reduced space required by 10%
• Reduced Batch sizes ranging from 2-75, to a consistent 2, reducing waiting and increasing throughput
• Reduced WIP by 75%
• Reduced most setup times by more than 50% some by as much as 80%, freeing more time for production and increasing capacity
• Product travel path shortened by more than 1/4 mile, eliminating a significant amount of walking and transportation
• Reduced manpower required and cross trained to supplement other departments, making the company more productive and flexible
• Decreased press time from 8 hours to 1 hour

Straight Stair Value Stream:

• Reduced Lead time from 5.5 to 3 weeks
• Process changes in subassembly reduces work of 4 persons to 2
• New information flow eliminates 90% of work orders on floor and cuts overproduction
• Reduced quote time from 'iffy' 5 days to 24 hours or less
• Team designed equipment for new rail assembly cell results in reducing joint assembly from 15 minutes+ to 2 Minutes
• Material servers and Pull systems eliminate over production, duplication of orders, and increases on time production.
• Kanban eliminates scheduling problems and eliminated daily backorders of rail fittings

Residential Steel Door Value stream:

• First U shape work cell eliminates 4500ft traveled per shift in assembly alone by bringing material to the worker
• Decreased space required for operations by 25%
• Material Servers and Kanban eliminate countless hours of searching/walking around for operators
• Implementation of Standardized Work shows that 80% productivity increase is possible in single door cell.

IT DOESN'T HAPPEN OVERNIGHT

Like most things in life, continuous improvement takes long-term commitment and a measure of resolve and patience. Developing a culture where people feel "safe" in exposing problems and are comfortable working together to solve them takes time. Often many old stereotypes about traditional business processes/operations as well as who can and should put forth ideas and implement change have to be "unlearned". Departmental and functional boundaries are no longer sacred and all activities must be questioned for "value". Companies that reap the most benefits from the philosophies and tools of TPS realize they are adopting a new business strategy, one that touches all areas and all people in the business; they are buying into ongoing change. And they understand that a sustainable culture of improvement is not accomplishable in a month, a quarter or a year!

NAC, at the process for just over two years now, readily admits their "house of improvement" is just beyond its foundation. They note the blueprint is not always clear and is often revised as new learning occurs and opportunities are exposed. Even though all employees have been trained in the basics of continuous improvement and many have undergone additional training and practice in specific topics such as value stream mapping, 5S (workplace organization), set-up reduction, pull systems and flow production, there are still many employees and areas that aren't "practicing" on a regular basis. However, Pete Humphrey, President; Dave Cooper, Director of Research and Development and the earliest champion of CI at NAC; and the entire CI steering team are committed to keeping the CI process moving forward. There is common agreement that NAC must continue on this important journey to insure future growth and competitiveness.

A simple flag, raised to let the material mover know when more material is needed, is an example of one of the many small ideas NAC employees have implemented to improve their daily work

During the tour, more than a dozen employees proudly and eloquently outlined improvements they have made and what it has meant to them, teammates and the company. Tour visitors heard about the changes exclusively from the "people that do the work". Often these same employees forthrightly told visitors about their early skepticism, convinced that management would not allow them to "do anything different". Yet tour-stop after tour-stop, their enthusiasm came through loud and clear. Many discussed how work has become easier, faster, and less stressful. Several talked about additional improvements that are in the works. Some acknowledged a teammate, supervisor or manager who helped with an idea. Overall there was a sense of excitement as the speakers "showed their stuff". Looking ahead, it will be interesting to see what the talented NAC employees can create from their strong improvement foundation!

Dave Cooper (Dcooper@northatlanticcorp.com), Director of Research and Development and CI Steering Team Member at NAC, can be contacted for more information on continuous improvement activities at the Somerset site.


Contact Information:
Steve Dodman, Program Manager
Greater Boston Manufacturing Partnership, Inc.
Phone: 617-287-7737
Fax: 617-287-7699
www.gbmp.org
sdodman@gbmp.org

Table of Contents
A Message from the President - The Year in Review 2004 and Focusing on the Future
2005 WMMA Public Policy Fly-In Update; NAM Events Celebrate Manufacturing
Presidential Initiatives
Small Business Legislative Council Announces 2005 Priorities
Building a Culture of Improvement: Employees of a Somerset, MA Millwork Company Create Solid Foundation for Change
WIC 2005 Registration Has Begun!
Call for 2005 Baldwin Award Nominations
What Is On the Minds of WMMA Members - Results of a Quick Survey