A
asutherland
I just began this project on August 9. The purpose on this new thread is two fold. First - to provide you the blow by blow as it rolls out. And second - to avoid any critical errors along the way by understanding and applying your feed back.
Background: Project began 3 weeks ago. I spend 2 wks in Sweden teaching lean, then 1 at home, then repeat this process over 4 months.
Environment: Manufacturing - Union Environment - In our first sit down the union representation unit, their first statement was " we just tried this in one of our other European branches and it failed. Why should we do it here?
(The response was in Swedish also " we had a group of Americans come over, they did most of the work, then they left")
(Don't you just love walking into a "tried that, didn't work attitude"?)
Have support from Division level, but everyone in a fog on how to roll out successfully, and everyone in doubt as to its value.
So, how to begin.
I started by putting together a "reason for change" presentation that takes about 3 hours to present. (PPT 108 pgs). I then spent the rest of the 1st week examining both the visible and invisible barriers.
The rollout began with training by myselft to a core team which consisted of a leading member of the union, one of the manufacturing managers, the Managing director of the plant, as well as key management leaders. The presentation was given in English with full disclosure hand outs in Swedish, as well as an overhead Power Point presentation (PPT) that was prepared also in Swedish. ( of course, English speaking core group ).
I set up a special program with the union representative to train weeks in advance of the VSM program, 5 S program, as well as the Standard Work/Kaizen program. (TPM to be done later as this environment has mostly very low tech machinery). The purpose of which was to provide as much information as possible to the union stewart before roll-out, for acceptance and understanding.
Other invisible barriers included: Many of these people spoke good English, but I was not comfortable with the fact that I thought they understood Swedish better. So, in preparation, I had all of the training overheads as well and participation documentation converted to Swedish, so if they did not understand what I was saying, they could refer to the overhead.
So, how did the first week go? The union steward is already spreading the word in support, the managing Director is giving the presentation with the help of one of the Manufacturing managers as well as the union steward to the entire shop floor, and three suppliers have already been brought on boad with 3 more being scheduled.
During this week that I am off, another trainer is doing the VSM presentation. (Personally, this kind of set uneasy with me but I will get over it).
Some early feed back from this program expressed some concern about the accuracy of data, (primarly cycle time at each process), so I will examine this when I return next week.
My next entry should be an update from my 8/27 -9/9 visit. My intent is to verify the VSM data, and roll out 5S.
Please stay tuned.... Same bat time, same bat channel.
Background: Project began 3 weeks ago. I spend 2 wks in Sweden teaching lean, then 1 at home, then repeat this process over 4 months.
Environment: Manufacturing - Union Environment - In our first sit down the union representation unit, their first statement was " we just tried this in one of our other European branches and it failed. Why should we do it here?
(The response was in Swedish also " we had a group of Americans come over, they did most of the work, then they left")
(Don't you just love walking into a "tried that, didn't work attitude"?)
Have support from Division level, but everyone in a fog on how to roll out successfully, and everyone in doubt as to its value.
So, how to begin.
I started by putting together a "reason for change" presentation that takes about 3 hours to present. (PPT 108 pgs). I then spent the rest of the 1st week examining both the visible and invisible barriers.
The rollout began with training by myselft to a core team which consisted of a leading member of the union, one of the manufacturing managers, the Managing director of the plant, as well as key management leaders. The presentation was given in English with full disclosure hand outs in Swedish, as well as an overhead Power Point presentation (PPT) that was prepared also in Swedish. ( of course, English speaking core group ).
I set up a special program with the union representative to train weeks in advance of the VSM program, 5 S program, as well as the Standard Work/Kaizen program. (TPM to be done later as this environment has mostly very low tech machinery). The purpose of which was to provide as much information as possible to the union stewart before roll-out, for acceptance and understanding.
Other invisible barriers included: Many of these people spoke good English, but I was not comfortable with the fact that I thought they understood Swedish better. So, in preparation, I had all of the training overheads as well and participation documentation converted to Swedish, so if they did not understand what I was saying, they could refer to the overhead.
So, how did the first week go? The union steward is already spreading the word in support, the managing Director is giving the presentation with the help of one of the Manufacturing managers as well as the union steward to the entire shop floor, and three suppliers have already been brought on boad with 3 more being scheduled.
During this week that I am off, another trainer is doing the VSM presentation. (Personally, this kind of set uneasy with me but I will get over it).
Some early feed back from this program expressed some concern about the accuracy of data, (primarly cycle time at each process), so I will examine this when I return next week.
My next entry should be an update from my 8/27 -9/9 visit. My intent is to verify the VSM data, and roll out 5S.
Please stay tuned.... Same bat time, same bat channel.