ame se regional conference charleston event delivered lean ... · a dream team, just-in-time, or...

AME is working to develop closerworking relationships with otherlike-minded organizations —those dedicated to pursuingenterprise excellence throughshared learning. We’re proud tobe working with some of the best in the business:

Alliance Partners

P articipants from manufacturingcompanies throughout the UnitedStates and Canada gained insights

about lean concepts and application duringthe AME Southeast Region “BuildingBridges” conference in Charleston, SC.“The conference organizers promised per-sonal attention, plenty of networkingopportunities, and a broad spectrum ofknowledge would be delivered, and theycame through on the promise,” said GreggMiner, president and COO of ScoreBusiness Systems.

The structure of the conference wasunique in that attendees received a “deepdive” in either lean accounting, developinga dream team, Just-In-Time, or Lean 101. They also learned about a wide variety oflean experiences shared by keynote speak-ers. Dan McDonnell of General Electrickicked off the keynotes with the amazingjourney GE is taking in changing the waylocomotives are made. This is a businessthat is reinventing itself after 100 success-ful years. The transformation there is mak-ing the employees recognize that, asMcDonnell put it, “manufacturing is cool.”Success at GE is measured against their“10 Ways to 10 Days” slogan. Prior torecent improvements, it took 31 days tobuild a locomotive; their goal is to reducecycle time to ten days. At the end of 2008they were down to 18 days, on their way to15, and on to the long-term goal of tendays. Very cool!

Frank Finelli of the Carlyle Group andJoy Romero of Vought Aircraft discussedhow to develop a culture geared towardcontinuous improvement (CI) and themeans to accomplish it in a greenfield

startup. Romero emphasized that settingthe culture right at the inception wasimportant in their success. Finelli notedthat, as new employees join the Voughtteam, they are immersed in quality, CI,and problem-solving training from dayone.

Participants were treated to a heart-warming story as could only be told byGus Whalen about the 126-year history ofthe Warren Featherbone Company. Whalendescribed how the company had to com-pletely reinvent itself on numerous occa-sions and today thrives in diverse indus-tries including education, banking, andphilanthropy.

Lean is all about not only talking thetalk, but walking the walk, so conferenceparticipants were treated to one of threeplant tours: Parker-Racor, Tea Plantation,and Vought. Tour sites were selected by theconference for their ability to show gooduse of lean tools in action. “The tour of theVought facility was truly inspiring,” Minersaid. “I have spent most of my career inthe aerospace business seeing many air-craft manufacturing facilities, but I havenever seen one as impressive as Vought.Joy Romero and her team there have creat-ed something to be truly proud of. I gotsome great ideas on visual managementand value stream organization sinceVought has put many of the humanresources at the point of use on the assem-bly floor.”

Sharon Halsey is the administrative coordinatorfor the AME Southeast Region and operationsmanager for the Silver Crescent Foundation.

Conference Reports Highlights from Recent Events

AME SE Regional Conference

Charleston EventDelivered Lean InsightsUnique “deep-dive” sessions, keynotes on culture were highlights.

Sharon Halsey

American Productivity and Quality Center (APQC)

Council of Supply ChainManagement Professionals

(CSCMP)

Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE)

Lean Product & ProcessDevelopment Exchange Inc.

(LPPDE)

National NanotechnologyManufacturing Center

(NNMC)

Society of Manufacturing Engineers

(SME)

The Shingo Prize for Operational Excellence

Wood Machinery Manufacturers(WMMA)

Target.ame.org Target Fourth Issue 2009 9

T he Annual ShingoPrize conferenceand award ceremony this year fea-tured keynote speakers who ampli-

fied the ideas behind the recently madechanges to the award program. It was thefirst event held since the organization, anAME Alliance Partner, implemented athree-tiered award structure (see “TheShingo Prize: Nourishing a SustainableImprovement Culture,” Target, SecondIssue, 2009).

In addition to Jacob Raymer, Shingo’sassistant director of education, who sharedinsights and lessons learned in creating theconnection and alignment between princi-ples, systems, and tools (the three levels oflean recognized by the award), the eventfeatured a long list of speakers. Amongthem: Dr. Stephen Covey, author of The 7Habits of Highly Effective People and otherpersonal and organizational success books;Clifford F. Ransom III, president ofRansom Research Inc.; Michael Hoseus,author of Toyota Culture; and RitsuoShingo, son of Shigeo Shingo, after whomthe Shingo Prize is named, and formerpresident of Toyota China and HinoMotors China.

Drawing on and highlighting links to hisseveral books, Covey illustrated the changefrom the “boss controlled” leadershipapproach of the previous era to “cultureenabled” approach needed today. The roleof leaders today, he said, is to help theirconstituents find their voices, create ashared mission statement, and unleashtheir talents. To accomplish this, leadersmust build a culture based on values thatare timeless and universal by truly listen-ing to the people they lead.

Ransom, demonstrating his increasing

frustration with the slow rate of adoptionof lean, challenged the audience with apresentation driven by a series of ques-tions, beginning with Isn’t it time for us allto move from tools to culture…NOW?Lamenting the limited number of compa-nies that practice lean, the small number ofleaders who truly understand lean, and thespeed with which some companies aban-doned lean during the current economicturmoil, Ransom confronted Shingo atten-dees with questions designed to test theirunderstanding of and commitment to lean.Among the questions: How religious areyou about respecting employees?, Are youready to stop worshiping at the altar ofcost cutting?, and Do you have lean spe-cialists or able teachers? Summing up heasserted that those who aspire to lean lead-ership have to "learn to learn," with astrong focus on creating what he terms a"consistent, repeatable, and sustainable"track record of lean adoption.

Hoseus shared what he learned about the“human-side” of lean while working atToyota. He asserted that Toyota’s “humansystems” are just as intentional and vital toits success as its famed production system,yet go unnoticed by most companies tryingto implement lean. He says Toyota views itsrelationship with employees as a partnershipin which the company provides stableemployment and sustains or improves work-ing conditions, and employees contributeeffort to realize company objectives.Through mutual trust, respect, and continu-ous improvement in the partnership, theorganization can achieve prosperity whileemployees achieve a sense of satisfaction.

Shingo traced the arc of his career andlean education, while sharing anecdotes

Shingo Prize

Conference Focusedon Culture, Not ToolsProgram stressed new approach of operations excellence award.

ExhibitorsBrady Corporation

Duggan Associates

Future State Solutions

Institute for Operational Excellence

Laubrass Inc.

Flame Tao Knoware Pvt. Ltd.

Fuss & O'Neill Manufacturing Solutions, LLC

MSOE Business Excellence Consortium

Pearson

Productivity Press-Taylor & Francis Group LLC

The 5S Store

TWI Institute

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Visual Work Place

University of Tennessee Center for Executive Education

Creform Corporation

ETFile

Baldrige National Quality Program - NIST

Lean Depot, LLC

Parsec Automation Corp.

BESCORP

Constraints Management Systems Inc.

ICMC Lean Six Sigma Consulting Group

QMI/Visual-Lean® Institute

Life Cycle Engineering

Milliken & Company - Milliken Performance Solutions

Jean Cunningham Consulting

PROS Pricing Solutions

SixSigmaZone


10 Target Fourth Issue 2009 Target.ame.org

Oct. 19.09 — Oct. 23.09Covington, Kentucky

AME’s alliance partner APQC held its14th annual KnowledgeManagement Conference in

Houston, TX, and drew approximately 200attendees. APQC, like AME, was formedto generate positive change in Americanbusiness performance. The organizationevolved to be the standard in establishingbenchmarking and knowledge manage-ment (KM) as a key management improve-ment tool, through the leadership ofChairman C. Jackson Grayson andPresident Carla O’Dell. The group estab-lished the Open Standards BenchmarkingConsortium (OSBC), an active databasethat contains performance data and bench-marks from more than 5000 sources (com-panies and sites).

The theme of this year’s conference was“The Knowledge Transfer Revolution:New Paradigms, New Payoffs.” O’Dellopened the conference by outliningAPQC’s five stages of KM maturity:Initiate, develop, standardize, optimize,and innovate (see Figure 1). To gain themost benefit from KM, it’s important tolearn how to harvest and effectively useinformation, she explained.

Keynoter Chris Meyer, CEO of MonitorNetworks, spoke on the future of business

and “informationalization” (a term hecoined) using new technology to mergeinside knowledge with outside knowledge.He quoted Jack Welch, the former chair-man and CEO of General Electric, who

said, “When the rate of change outsideexceeds the rate of change inside, the endis in sight.” Meyer’s advice: Develop moreeffective strategies for sharing knowledgein multiple arenas.

designed to clarify seemingly obviouspoints about lean that are frequently misun-derstood. In the highly interactive presenta-tion, he defined the word “problem” as thedeviation from the standard, pointing outthat first a standard must be determined.“Only then,” he said, “can you see the prob-

lem.” He also asked rhetorically, whether,when confronted by several problems,should the problem with the biggest devia-tion or smallest deviation be solved first?His answer: “The scale of the deviationdoesn’t matter; what matters is the extent ofthe negative consequence.”

In track presentations, Shingo Prize win-ners shared best practices that helped themwin recognition.

For a list of Shingo Prize winners, go towww.shingoprize.org (select “Award Info,”then “Award Recipients.)

— Patricia Panchak

Knowledge Management

How to Effectively Harvest and Use InformationBill Baker

Why Aren’t We All at Level 5?

APQC’s Stages of Knowledge Management Maturity™

© 2009 APQC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Figure 1. To harvest and effectively use information, organizations must master the five stages of knowledgemanagement maturity shown here, according to APQC President Carla O’Dell.

Five Levels of Knowledge Management


Victor Newman, author of TheKnowledge Activist’s Handbook, discussedstrategic KM and stated, “Organizationshave developed powerful routines forresisting conventional change approaches.”He also remarked that “the value of knowl-edge is like the value of fruit; it’s eithergreen, ripe, or spoiled.” Timing is every-thing. Newman counseled that sinceknowledge has a short half-life, manage-ment needs to figure out how to gather anduse information when it has greatest value.

Rob Cross, professor of management at

the University of Virginia and researchdirector of The Network Roundtable,spoke about the importance of social net-works in knowledge transfer. He discussedhis approach for using technology tools toanalyze organizational patterns of commu-nication. Cross said that the petrochemicalindustry, for example, has been a leader insocial networking due to their unique wideglobal dispersion and their industry’srequirement for specific knowledge need-ed to solve problems rapidly and on-site.Analyzing conversation patterns in an

enterprise yields information about weakand strong communications patterns, and itcan help an organization develop a succes-sion plan to hand off essential knowledge.Knowledge brokers or “nodes” are veryvaluable pieces of the organization’s opera-tional capability and they may not be thetraditional leaders, Cross said.

Bill Baker of Speed to Excellence is AME’s vicepresident of affiliations and also serves onTarget’s editorial board.

T he Lean Product and ProcessDevelopment Exchange, an AMEAlliance Partner, convened its sec-

ond annual conference to share new ideasand best practices. The event featuredcompanies such as Teledyne Benthos andKulicke & Soffa, leaders in using leanprinciples for NPD who described theirefforts, as well as keynote speakers whoaddressed the broader issue of leadingchange.

Kathleen Radeka, president of theWhittier Consulting Group, Inc.,addressed the importance of personalmeaning in convincing people to changethe status quo. Noting that many leadersuse facts and logic to convince others tochange, she asserted: “Logic makes peoplethink, but emotion makes them act. Logicis push, meaning is pull.” Citing several

examples, she described how to identifyelements in a company’s vision and objec-tives that are meaningful to the peoplewho must change if the objective is to beachieved. Most important is asking ques-tions: What do you want to do or hope toaccomplish? What would achieving theobjective mean to you, to the people whoneed to change what they do, and to yourcompany? In answering these questions,leaders can create a tension between whatis and what could be that causes people towant to change.

Lean Learning Center Partner JamieFlinchbaugh spoke about the need to dis-tinguish between lean thinking and leanpractices. Too many people, he said, iden-tify a lean practice and try to adopt itwithout thinking through what they aretrying to accomplish, what problem they

are trying to solve, or what gap they aretrying to close. Instead, lean should beabout what we think, not about what wecan see. Lean is not value stream maps orA3s, he said. “That’s not the work, the reallean work happened before you wrote itdown—that’s the artifact that captures it soyou can share it with someone else.”

Thinking that lean is about what we cansee, rather than how we think, leads to peo-ple copy practices they’ve seen in othercompanies, which, he says, is the cause ofmost lean failures. “Don’t just copy,” hesaid. Instead, it’s important to “thinkthrough where you are and where you needto be and start charting your course on thatpath. Use knowledge from all sorts of com-panies to help you do that, but you have tostart thinking though it on your own.”


LPPDE

Translating Lean to New Product Development



Servant Leadership

Highlights from the Scanlon Leadership Network Annual Conference

A lthough diverse, companies in theScanlon Leadership Network shareadherence to Scanlon principles,

which can be summarized as fairness to allstakeholders and servant leadership (leadersas the servants of all others). Almost all arealso dedicated to lean operations and quali-ty performance. Some have been the subjectof Target articles. Except for one auto sup-plier, each is weathering the financialdownturn with a minimum of crisis.

Their annual one-day meeting is unusu-al because CEOs and workers sit in thesame rooms participating in the same dis-cussions. Most topics are on human issues.

The leadoff keynote by Adam Hartung

in Kalamzoo, MI, was on the key to inno-vation. It’s not concentrating on core com-petence, focus on the customer, great lead-ership, and not lean — not even great tech-nical inventiveness. It’s ability to breaklocked-in thinking and practice, adoptingnew systems, skills, and organization toseize opportunities. Companies have tobreak their old molds and form new ones.Classic examples of inability break lock-ininclude Xerox with the Lisa (whichbecame the Mac), and IBM with the per-sonal computer. Participants then dis-cussed how their companies might escapetheir own lock-ins in these troubled times.

In the afternoon, everyone met in a ple-

nary session to discuss what they consid-ered to be their most important collectivechallenges moving forward. The smooth-ness of group discussions indicated thatmost people in the room were accustomedto teamwork. Their conclusion was thatfinancial survival was important, but thetop of the list might be a surprise: dealingwith environmental sustainability andmerging lean into green. They really areunusual companies.

To learn more about the ScanlonNetwork, visit: www.scanlonleader.org.

— Robert W. Hall


A bout 200 TWI enthusiasts — train-ers, users, and would-be trainersand users — attended the annual

TWI Summit near Cincinnati. AME spon-sors the summit.

Attendees said their companies are inter-ested in TWI because of anticipated growth,to prepare for a hiring spree, or to improveefficiency. Attendees came mostly frommanufacturing companies, but also fromservice providers such as hospitals, utilities,and casinos.

Master Trainer Patrick Graupp and hismentor, Kazuhiko Shibuya, were keynotespeakers on the conference’s first day.

Shibuya witnessed the power of TWI inthe 1960s, when he was working at Sanyo,which was christened as a global companyfrom the beginning — its name means“three oceans” for the three great oceans ofthe world.

The problem Sanyo faced, Shibuya toldTWI Summit attendees, was one many ofthem face today: How to expand the com-pany’s skills and knowledge globally withboth efficiency and consistency. Languagehad the potential to be a huge barrier, hold-ing otherwise highly capable people fromreaching their full performance potential.

“The Japanese study English, but theyknow only how to read it. They don’t knowhow to speak it, so they would be poorcommunicators,” said Shibuya, who studiedTWI under Japan’s first Master Trainers andlater mentored Graupp when he worked atSanyo. “Not only would the people learningbe confused, but the people teaching wouldbe confused. We had to remember the pur-pose of the Japanese [trainers] going over-seas. It wasn’t to speak English. It was totransfer technology and knowledge.”

Sanyo leaders chose to use TWI, atraining methodology that the UnitedStates developed during World War II, totrain unskilled workers at home to buildequipment and machinery for the war.TWI met two criteria that other trainingmethods couldn’t during wartime: Theworkers had to trained very quickly, andthey had to perform their tasks with con-sistent quality.

The TWI method has multiple compo-nents that address skills training, manage-ment, continuous improvement, and safety;but the heart of the person-to-person train-ing is the transfer of knowledge in a mini-malist format from trainer to student. Thetransfer is broken down into graduatedsteps. The student repeats the skill at onestep until the skill is mastered. Then, thestudent moves on to the next step.

Using common “lean” language, TWIlevels the flow of training to smooth thetransfer of knowledge from a brain that isadvanced in the processing of that knowl-edge to a brain that is just beginning toprocess it. Biologically, the brain has abottleneck when it comes to informationuptake: It can absorb a limited amount at

one time. So the level loading of knowl-edge assures a quality transfer. Also, TWIfocuses on “quality at the source” by hold-ing back the process (moving from onestep to the next) until the student achievesperfection. After initial training, an audit-ing phase enables the trainer to “stop theline” if he/she observes that the studentneeds more training.

This is why — when done properly —TWI is like lean in that it is universallysuccessful, agnostic to environment, and— as Sanyo learned — transcends lan-guage barriers. “We had people who couldnot speak English at all that were able totrain and even answer questions by focus-ing on key points,” Shibuya said.

Now retired from Sanyo, Shibuya stillconsults and trains on TWI and estimatesthat 80 percent to 90 percent of thosetrained in TWI at Sanyo went on tobecome plant managers or division lead-ers. In fact, he said, Toyota still uses a sys-tem of TWI training that anyone whowants to be promoted must participate in.Those seeking the highest posts must gothrough the training three times.

Shibuya said he travels to China fre-quently to teach TWI, and he is heartenedto see its resurgence in the United States.If it continues to spread here, TWI defi-nitely will lead to major productivityimprovements in business and, thus, theeconomy, he said.

“TWI is a learn-by-doing approach,” heexplained. “The more you do it, the betteryou get.”

Tonya Vinas, a freelance writer and former man-aging editor of IndustryWeek, is the editor ofTWI News.



Employee Education

Summit Explores Training Within IndustryTonya Vinas

... TWI definitely will lead to major productivity

improvements in business and, thus, the economy.

— Kazuhiko Shibuya


September 9-10

The Process of Culture ChangeNew Haven, CT

Learn from three different companies about how they have positively changed the culture of the organization – and the results (includes tours): HID Global in North Haven, CT;

Electri-Cable Assemblies in Shelton, CT; and Habco, Inc. in Glastonbury, CT.

September 2

Benchmarking and Performance Measurements in 2009Dallas, TX

This seminar is constructed to share the current approaches to benchmarking and developing rapid knowledge transfer in your organization.

September 9-10

How Leading Companies are Achieving Supply Chain ExcellenceAustin, TX

See and hear executives from world-class lean manufacturers – including Dresser Wayne and DJO Surgical – talk about their strategies and tactics for optimizing inventory and thus extracting

working capital from their operations … and more.

September 15-16

Set-Up Reduction – TPM BlitzSan Antonio, TX

Learn the basics of setup reduction and TPM and begin applying this knowledge to a plant problem in one day. Hosted by M2 Global Technology, Ltd.

September 16-17

Tour Toyota’s Boston Parts Distribution CenterMansfield, MA

Here is your chance to learn Toyota process improvement techniques from the source. The methods and principles you will see are applicable to any business.

September 17-18

Improve Cash Collections with Lean & Operational DecisionMaking with Lean Accounting (Attend one or both and save!)

San Antonio, TXImprove Cash Collections addresses cash flow issues in a troubled economy. Operational

Decision Making will show how the adoption of Accounting for Lean will improve decision making. A new, high-impact role for the financial professional will be revealed.

September 21-25

Training Within IndustryDecatur, AL

TWI contains the basic skills that will enable supervisors and other employees to make the transition from hierarchical “command & control” organizations to flatter, team-oriented organizations.

September 22

A Day Thinking About Manufacturing ExcellenceAthens, GA

Review the corporate leadership team and operations team organization structures, the thinking behind it and an introduction of the key interface with these leaders – hosted by Power Partners, Inc.

September 22-23

Lean Accounting SummitWalt Disney World’s Contemporary Resort, Orlando, FL

The Lean Accounting Summit has a reputation of drawing the world's most recognized lean and lean-accounting thought leaders. This is a milestone year for the Summit

(five years) so plan to join the celebration of the evolving knowledge of lean management. For more information, go to www.leanaccountingsummit.com.

Upcoming Events Conferences, Workshops, Seminars, and Plant Tours

For more information go to www.ameconference.org.

October 19-23AME International Lean Conference

Covington, KY

AME LaunchesTWI Learning

Network

Over 80 people attended the AMETWI Community of Practice spe-cial interest group (SIG) presenta-tion at this year’s TWI Summit.Glenn Marshall, the driving forcebehind AME’s efforts to createCoP learning networks, deliveredthe presentation as part of the TWICoP SIG launch.

The benchmarking and sustain-ability champion at NorthropGrumman Shipbuilding, Marshallsaid the TWI CoP is the secondSIG created under the auspices ofthe AME APQC BenchmarkingCoP. The Lean Accounting CoPlaunched in 2007. A Lean andGreen Sustainability CoP launchedat the Lean & Green Summit inSavannah, GA, in June.

The AME/APQC BenchmarkingCoP, formed in 2007, is an infor-mal, organically grown learningnetwork of individuals interested inbenchmarking and related topics.It provides members with a way toshare ideas and learn from peersabout benchmarking, a network ofpeers to help in benchmarking ini-tiatives, and a way to extend thethinking and concepts of bench-marking. The CoP hosts nearly 400members from nine countries

On a practical level, the CoPmembers submit questions aboutspecific benchmarking questionsto other members, who respondwith ideas and advice (see“Finding Fresh Safety ProgramIdeas,” on page 7). Many repliesare returned within 24 hours, andothers come within the next twoweeks.


ame se regional conference charleston event delivered lean ... · a dream team, just-in-time, or...

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