WorkforceDevelopment,Investing in Human Capital

Patricia E. Moody

6

Target

We need a new workforce developmentmodel that describes in practical detailhow to build strong partners from the

human capital now in place. Motorola, Xerox,IBM, and other big first-tier companies have long­established, rich training and development pro­grams. Smaller organizations like Solectron,EMC, and Nypro are working hard to develop theirown. Unfortunately many third-tier companieshave neither the resources nor the time to developtraining programs to fit their particular needs.

How can we prepare workers, design curric­ula, and develop training programs without avision of the workplace as it should look? We canlearn much from the pioneers and their models.

Training ExpansionThe changes in a manufacturing profes­

sional world and its development since the intro­duction of MRP are enormous. Let's look at themanufacturing planning world of 20 years ago.We're in a material planning department where Ilearned the basics of MRP and master schedul­ing, although, as was typical, what we did wascalled anything but material planning or masterscheduling. The company was a big high techcomputer manufacturer in happier times.Although planners and schedulers there had afew basic planning tools, the way work really gotdone was through politics - horsetrading("I've got one disk drive I'll trade for your lineprinter,") and brute force number crunching.

Every quarter all materials folks gathered up

hundreds of 2 x 6 planning slips - actual bill ofmaterial explosions - and headed down the roadto the Old Mill Restaurant to grind out next quar­ter's forecast. And every end-of-month we all got todrive forktrucks of computers down to shipping.

After all the numbers were entered and mas­saged, or padded "just-in-case," and a few beersconsumed, we returned to the plant to play out themystery of the planning cycle. And mysterious itwas! Afull MRP requirements planning sheet aswe now know it would include on hand (ware­house) information, safety stock calculations, andother background data. But in 1973 most of thatdata was in the heads of a few impressive plannersbecause, as the saying went, "We make computers,we don't use them."

Like the parts list on a new car, computershave thousands of components, from a range ofcommodity sources. Aproduction or materialplanner faced with the complexity of building anevolving product, besieged with engineeringchange orders, needed a strong constitution.

And the toughest was Joe Donnelly, 300pounds of cigar-smoking human cpu power. Joecould recite abill of materials at 20 yards; renownedthroughout the distribution community, he couldexpedite anything. Single source rare commodityshortages appeared amaZingly intact on his deskovernight. When negotiation for a critical partfailed, Joe had other ways to make you say yes.

Joe's description of his ideal materials/pur­chasing person was pretty narrow. He needed

someone who liked long stints working with numbers,interrupted by daily production panics. College degrees orspecial outside training courses were not encouraged. Butthe ability to consume quarts of beer was helpful, to drinkoff the stress; Joe and his crew were fond of late nights atthe VFW and an occasional celebratory Saturday morningbeer bust as the final shipment wheeled down to the dock.

Personal Versus ElectronIc NetworksQuite a contrast to the manufacturing pros of 20

years later. Joe has been replaced with a white-shirtedMBA, looking to earn her stripes in the trenches. On herdesk sit all the tools computer scheduling and planningsystems designers can offer, from user friendly materialplanning detail and summary sheets, to software net­works that access supplier'S, even trucker's schedules andforecasts.

While Joe's world was built on personal networking,and the ability to "save the day" when numbers couldn't,his replacement has at her fingertips more informationon the parts she controls than she can use, thanks to elec­tronic networking.

The More ThIngs Change...Have we reached the long-predicted Age of the

Knowledge-based Worker? It sure feels like that, but allthe computer tools and power did not solve the classicforecasting or scheduling problems - they simplybecome clearer, sooner. Joe's replacement has a differenttitle, different skills, and is a master at the pc keyboard.

How did we get this far, and what's next? Five majorchanges happened betweenJoe and his replacement:1. Competition - The playing field narrowed as other,

younger competitors came on board, companies likeData General, followed by Prime, Apollo, Sun.

2. Computer planning systems - Commercial MRPand other planning packages became cheap and userfriendly. Joe's first "modern" computer tool, arecreation of IBM's RPS (Requirements PlanningSystem) was assembled off-hours by a productiontechnician. It shaved a few hours off the Old Millforecasting session, but without inventory balancesand pegged requirements, it was only a simpleexplosion program that gave users an incompletepicture of acomponent position.

3. ]IT - On Joe's production floor, componentsaccumulated in dozens of small feeder stockrooms, allguarde<Lwell by his personal minions. In a separate

building equal in size to the production facility, Joeerected a multi-million dollar, fully automated(except when the robot let a thousand pound diskdrive slip between its fingers from five shelves up!)warehouse. The epitome of accumulated inventory .decisions - "just-in-case," rework, and hundreds ofunaccounted for last-minute schedule changes - thewarehouse filled within hours of its dedication.

JIT of course requires that all waste disappear,including accumulations of unused materials. Sofrom this 20-year distance the only benefit we canattribute to Joe's edifice is that, for the first time in hisfacilities' history, all bits and pieces of good and badforecasting, all negotiating chips in the form of diskdrives and cables and connectors, and monitors,surfaced in one central area. Visual managementmade real.

4. Quality - Integration of outsourced materials,improved component quality, and thereforepredictability, cut into Joe's empire. Takinginventories from one turn up to six reduced his powerbase - less trading, fewer allocation squabbles,empty shelves in the warehouse, stilled forktrucks atthe receiving dock. As quality continued its climb,planning and purchasing folks could look aheadmore. Computers that may have sat three weeks inassembly running diagnostics and awaitinginspection were replaced by on-site integration, theassembly of major components at the customer site.

5. Workforce shifts - Various groups and profeSSionalsocieties started to encroach on Joe's territory in thelate seventies. In 1973 only one or two plant peopleheld. college degrees, each well hidden. Theappearance of each newcomer "upped the ante" onprofessional skills. Although early AmericanProduction and Inventory Control Society (APICS)chapter meetings frequently resembled "Boy's NightOut," attendees' enthusiastic acceptance of newplanning techniques and certification examscontributed to generally uplifting profeSSional skillsand credibility. First were the American Society forQuality Control (ASQC), National Association ofPurchasing Managers (NAPM) and APICS, followedby spin-off AME. Women and minorities dotted thelandscape, and although their entry may have beenunwelcome; by sheer numbers they "colorized" theimage of the new material planning profeSSional.

7january/February 1993

8

Target

Manufacturing planning and control departmentsof 20 years ago have acquired new names, new systems,and new professional credentials. Very narrow functionsthat worked with other narrow functions - materialplanning, quality, production control - have beenreplaced with fewer organization names, many of whichare team-based.

Planning profeSSionals in supply management havemastered new technical skills; next, they need to acquirethe mature partnering skills that their seamless and wall­less environment requires. The skills that manufacturingpros must develop can be arranged on a continuum. Thefirst two stops on the continuum, quality and timeliness,are basic JIT requirements. Perfecting quality systems ­planning, measurement, and control - requires organi­zation-wide acceptance and day-to-day use of the basicquality tools - Pareto, scatter diagrams, fishbone. Thenext four are "fuzzier" skills not easily acqUired fromtechnical training sessions. The last one, trust, is a basicrequirement for developing partnerships.

The Seven Manufacturing Partnership Skills1. Quality2. Timeliness3. Communications4. FleXibility5. The habit of continuous improvement6. The habit of collaboration7. Trust.

Timeliness, the second critical element that is also abasic requirement of JIT, means that external and inter­nal suppliers must deliver product when and in the cor­rect sequence to support customer operations. Honda'ssuppliers, for example, understand that even if theirschedules are not synchronous with their customer's,their deliveries must be.

Training production and shipping personnel, aswell as scheduling folks, to design and manage flows thatsupport minimum loss of time is essential to create seam­less partnerships.

Training people like Joe to excel at the seven ele­ments is a lifetime challenge, well beyond the boundariesof typical culture change. People need a safe opportunity tolearn and try out new ideas, then practice them in an envi­ronment that welcomes improvement. The computer man­ufacturer of 20 years ago, growing at 100 percent per year,had little time for the exploration of improvements beyond

what it took to get today's shipment down to the dock.Developing partnering skills, like communication,

is a challenge. Both sides to a partnership agreement ­customer procurement personnel, and supplier produc­tion and marketing/customer service folks, must be wellskilled in two key areas - communications and quality.They will have mastered the JIT basics, have a drive tocontinuously analyze and improve performance, and beteam players.

Companies don't need to reinvent curricula each timeacompany or even asmall work team wants to start adevel­opment program. Afew others have gone down this pathbefore, and even though the journey won't be the same,the predecessors are willing to share their experiences.

Excellence ModelsIn the mid-eighties, well before Motorola won the

Baldrige, the company started Motorola University. (SeeFigure 1.) In 1987, the company started training cus­tomers and suppliers. 1987 saw, in the communicationssector, the start-up of the Partnership for Growth Pro­gram. As Chairman Robert Galvin recognized, for thecompany to reach its very aggressive Six Sigma (fewerthan 3.4 defects per million) quality goal, suppliers mustalso have Six Sigma capability.

At the beginning Motorola University offered threebasic courses:1. Design for Manufacturability2. Statistical Process Control (a one-day course)3. Manufacturing Cycle Management (JlT).

When the program expanded to suppliers in 1987,they were charged the same fee as internal customers ­also $150 per day. 1990 saw the addition of "Understand­ing Six Sigma," quality methods applied to administra­tive business functions like purchasing and order admin­istration.

Excellence models like Honda and Motorola havedeveloped impressive curricula, pieces of which are rou­tinely shared or licensed to suppliers. In addition to for­mal training, Honda offers suppliers other developmentopportunities that they could not afford on their own.Dave Nelson, Honda of America's vice president of pur­chasing, describes his approach to supplier evaluationand development: "Every one is different.. ..You need tolook at suppliers that you develop on a case by case basisto understand where are their greatest needs, theirstrengths, and weaknesses. The number one element is to

Motorola University Offerings

Training

I

Quality

UnderstandingSix Sigma

+Customer Satisfaction

Workshop

+Organization Mapping

& Analysis

Another ProgramRecommendation

Benchmarking

Technology

Design forManufacturability

+Developing Quality

Software

+Product Designfor Assembly

~Mechanical ToleranceDesign for Six Sigma

Cycle Time

Manufacturing CycleManagement

+Short Cycle

Management (SCM)"How-To" Series

+Total Cycle TimeImplementation

Workshop

+Administrative

Cycle Time Reducti~n

SPC

Introduction toTechniques forPhased Process

Quality Improvement

+SPC Core I

+SPC Core II

+SPC Core III

Figure 1.

have the mindset that you intend to do that because youfind it mutually beneficial."

To illustrate, several months ago, followingHonda's completion of an assessment of themselves ascustomers, the feeling was that there was so much morethe company could do to help. One of the new tasks willbe a once per month seminar on some special subjectthat suppliers need, a "tutorial," such as the DisabilitiesAct. The company offered some Honda associates whowere in charge of their own Disabilities Act implementa­tion, and an outside compensation specialist. The pro­gram was opened up to all suppliers because there arelots of American companies too small to pick up the tabfor an outside consultant. Another subject, legal issuesfor small companies, gave attendees the opportunity toline up legal help in areas they might need.

In environmental issues, Nelson feels that Honda ofAmerica has one of the best staffs in the country. Thisresource has also been opened up to suppliers. Othercommon manufacturing issues are popular topics ­carpal tunnel syndrome and back strain problems. The

Anna engine plant, for example, has completed a trialprogram on back problem prevention that has reducedthe incidence of this problem to close to zero. The plant isnow sharing that educational program.

Motorola dedicated $60 million to create MotorolaUniversity, where customers and suppliers can takeadvantage of the company's vast training and develop­ment resources. In addition, the company has joined withDigital Equipment Corporation, Xerox, Texas Instru­ments, and SEMATECH in a supplier training consortiumdesigned to take portions of its Motorola University cur­riculum and offer them at reasonable rates to small sup­pliers and supplier consortia through community collegesand other educational groups.

As Motorola expanded its training offerings, thecompany trimmed its supply base, and started the Part­nership for Growth Program. (See Figure 2.)

Core CurriculumFour courses have become standard requirements

across Motorola. Preferred suppliers must have completedthese core requirements, which the Supply Management

''Every one isdifferent... .Youneed to look at

suppliers thatyoudevelop on a case

by case basis tounderstand where

are their greatestneeds, their

strengths andweaknesses. "

Dave Nelson,Honda of America

9January/February 1993

Motorola's "Partnership for Growth" Program

Council mandates as basic certification requirements.In 1991, 6500 individuals participated in all cours­

es offered by Motorola University; the company spent$150 million on all training. Design for Manufacturabil­ity is the most popular course. By 1991 Motorola Univer­sity had delivered 123,000 hours of training throughlicensing.

Motorola's ongoing financial commitment todevelopment is reflected in their spending 3.34 percent ofpayroll for training, compared with 2.9 percent last year.Human capital is a resource to be nurtured long-term,like any other capital investment. Indeed, employeesmust use five days per year minimum as training days.

According to Paul Brault, director of customer andsupplier training, who is responsible for delivery ofMotorola training to both suppliers and customers, as thesupply base shrinks, customers are becoming a biggerand growing section of the training business. Plans for1992 were to train 9000 customers, compared with 6500in 1991; from 1989 to 1991 the customer training busi­ness increased 600 percent!

Customers and suppliers are divided into threemajor groups, for each of which Motorola University hasdeveloped a training strategy - large companies of10,000 employees, medium of 1000-10,000 employees,and small under 1000 employees. Companies of 10,000employees license the program because they have thefacilities and trainers to deliver instruction. The cost forthe license is $1500 per finished hour. The training insti­tution has the right to reproduce materials that are pro­vided by Motorola.

Afew conditions apply - the company must iden­tify an employee who will go through the certificationprocess, and must designate a trainer. Should that trainerfail the certification test, he can try again; if trainersneed the five-day Motorola teacher's training program, itis available.

Three St,ps To Workforc, Dev,'opm,ntOnce an organization has benchmarked against

the excellence models - Motorola, Honda, the educa­tion consortium - there are three steps to moving an

10

Target

199119901989198719861985

Figure 2.

Total Suppliers108511581238180021004200

Preferred Suppliers324 (representing $3.2 billion)

333383600800o

organization along the development continuum (seeFigure 3).

Unfortunately, most companies develop audits andlong-range plans for other internal functions - quality;systems, new products - and avoid "human capital"audits. But if Thurow and others are right, and humanassets are all we will have as differentiating factors, whyavoid this critical area?

St,p On" Th, Workforce AuditThe first step to developing a superbly skilled work­

force is to find out what you have, to audit and evaluatecurrent skills.

The Motorola Quality System Review (QSR) is agood starting place. This document evaluates an organi­zation's commitment to continuous improvementthrough training and development in several areas. Theself-SCOring questions in the QSR allow organizations toevaluate where they are developmentally. For example,"Poor" performance in Subsection 1.8, the training plan,implies that no training plan exists - the company isreally not in the game; "Outstanding," where few com­panies fall, implies complete management support,mature deployment, and superior results (see Figure 4).

This audit can be self-administered. The scoringelements are arranged so that test takers will see a pro­gression from no activity, to outstanding performance, indeployment, and results. Although the Motorola assess­ment system is not a complete gUide for organizationsplanning development strategies, it gives a full picture ofhow one Baldrige winner continues to develop qualitycommitment.

St,p Two, ATraining andDev,'opment MasterPlan

Every organization needs a master plan. Althoughit is very easy to skip the detailed thinking required todevelop a plan that will take an organization into itsnext development stage, without one, human resourcedevelopment is haphazard and wasteful. Companies mayspend thousands of training dollars ineffectively, like thepump manufacturer that went through six million train­ing dollars in eight months training its entire organiza­tion on total quality. Six months after training, no one inthe organization was using the new tools. The moneywas wasted because the organization wasn't ready; it wasnot structured to let people use what they had learned.

The primary objective in delivering an effectivelong-term training and organizational plan is to ensure

that all activities are consistent, integrated, reinforced,and truly reflective of the organization's short and long­term business needs. Three components make up thetotal development efforts normally falling under the roleof human resource management:

1. Training - Ashort-term solution to strengthenspecific skill-related areas (such as CAD training,sales skills, product training) for immediate jobapplication.

2. Development - A longer-term solution tostrengthen the total individual or identified group tomeet future business needs (such as a degree, a

Three Workforce Development Steps

1. Step One - Workforce Audit2. Step Two - Training and Development Master Plan

a. Budgetb. Capabilities survey to identify weaknesses and prioritiesc. Training model to satisfy weaknesses and priorities.

3. Step Three - Reward excellent results, build accountability. The first step indeveloping asuperbly skilled workforce is to find out what skills are in place, to audit them.

Flgurea.

mentor program, a series of training programs andon-the-job practice.)

3. Organizational Development - Short- and long­term solutions to help the organization managecultural change efforts on all levels (such as teambuilding, organizational structuring, successionplanning, enhancing group productivity.)

Excerpts on Training and Development from Motorola Quality System Review (QSR)

Subsection 1.8, Quality System Management, asks:Is management's support of ongoing training (including quality training) sufficient and is it documented by an organizational training plan?

Poor: No training plan exists. There is no management support for developing one.

Weak: Some training is performed as time and budget allows. There is no documented training plan. Some managers recognize the need forbusiness/quality training.

Fair: Aformal training system exists within the organization. Training tends to be limited primarily to manufacturing related skills. Training for new hiresand transfers exist in some areas of the business. There is general awareness of the need for quality training by management.

Marginally Qualified: Annual training plans for the whole organization are required by management. Most employees receive some job related training.Training plans generally tie to business and quality objectives. The training plan is fully documented and includes all new hires, transfers, andmanagers.

Qualified: All employees have received comprehensive training that recognizes individual needs and development. T~ing plans and progress arereviewed regularly by all levels of management. Measures have been established to evaluate training effectiveness in support of strategic plans.

Outstanding: Training at all levels is driven by strategic objectives and individual development needs and is aligned with customer satisfactionrequirements and expectations. Training effectiveness measures clearly demonstrate a positive impact of training in accomplishing business andcustomer satisfaction results.

Subsection 6.1, Problem Solving Techniques: Are enough people adequately trained in problem solving techniques in comparison to the needsof the organization, such as: stratification, check sheet, histogram, Pareto diagram, cause and effect analysis, scatter diagram and control charts, Designof Experiments (DOE), advanced problem solving techniques, team oriented problem solving, Taguchi Methods, Design for Manufacturability, etc.

Subsection 8.1 Human Resources Involvement. Does management ensure that all personnel are fully familiar with their role in achieving totalcustomer satisfaction?

8.2 Do all personnel know how their performance impacts internal and external customer satisfaction?

8.3 Can all personnel who contact external customers properly reflect quality improvement programs (such as Six Sigma)?

8.4 Are sufficient personnel participating in professional societies and growth programs?

8.5 Are all personnel trained in sufficient detail to support key initiatives?

8.6 Are the results of training properly evaluated and indicated program changes made?

8.1 Does apolicy exist which encourages the cross training and rotation of personnel, and is this policy used as the basis of job progression?

8.8 Are proper performance standards (including customer satisfaction standards) participatively developed and regularly applied to all personnel?

8.9 Are total customer satisfaction programs and resulting successes publicized to all personnel?

8.10 Do goal setting and reward/incentive programs properly support the quality improvement process? © Motorola Inc. 1991

FIgure 4.

11

january/February 1993

Competitive Management Capabilities Survey

Instructions: Answer all questions, leaving none blank. Use your best understanding of the meaning of the terms used in this instrument in making yourresponse. For each competency listed in the center of the page:a) On the left, circle the number that indicates how important each competency is for managers to possess in executing the corporate competitive strategy for the future;b) On the right, circle the number that indicates current organizational capabilities or strengths in each competency area.

Skill area's relative importance to execution The ability to: Company's current relative strengthof company's strategy: in this skill area:

No Importance High Importance Very Weak Very Strong

A. 1 2 3 4 5 Manage Strategic Change 1 2 3 4 5B. 1 2 3 4 5 Manage Cultural Change 1 2 3 4 5C. 1 2 3 4 5 Articulate aTangible Vision 1 2 3 4 5D. 1 2 3 4 5 Exhibit aHigh Degree of Integrity 1 2 3 4 5E. 1 2 3 4 5 Communicate Corporate Values 1 2 3 4 5F. 1 2 3 4 5 Communicate Effectively 1 2 3 4 5G. 1 2 3 4 5 Interface with Global Counterparts 1 2 3 4 5H. 1 2 3 4 5 Understand Global Economic, Political, 1 2 3 4 5

Cultural, Social IssuesI. 1 2 3 4 5 Be Flexible and Adaptive 1 2 3 4 5J. 1 2 3 4 5 Manage Flexible Organizations 1 2 3 4 5K. 1 2 3 4 5 Be aTeam Leader 1 2 3 4 5L. 1 2 3 4 5 Be aTeam Member 1 2 3 4 5M. 1 2 3 4 5 Manage Innovation 1 2 3 4 5N. 1 2 3 4 5 Synthesize Complex Information 1 2 3 4 5O. 1 2 3 4 5 Learn How to Learn 1 2 3 4 5P. 1 2 3 4 5 Think Integratively 1 2 3 4 5Q. 1 2 3 4 5 Demonstrate Effective Political Skills 1 2 3 4 5R. 1 2 3 4 5 Influence Others Without Authority 1 2 3 4 5S. 1 2 3 4 5 Negotiate for Resources 1 2 3 4 5T. 1 2 3 4 5 Manage Ethnically/Culturally Diverse Workforce 1 2 3 4 5U. 1 2 3 4 5 Exhibit aStrong Customer Orientation 1 2 3 4 5V. 1 2 3 4 5 Build Customer/Supplier Alliances 1 2 3 4 5W. 1 2 3 4 5 Manage aFast Cycle Organization 1 2 3 4 5X. 1 2 3 4 5 Manage aLeaner Organization 1 2 3 4 5Y. 1 2 3 4 5 Manage Quality Improvement 1 2 3 4 5Z. 1 2 3 4 5 Embrace New Technologies 1 2 3 4 5AA. 1 2 3 4 5 Manage Strategy to Action/Results 1 2 3 4 5BB. 1 2 3 4 5 Take Risks/Initiative 1 2 3 4 5CC. 1 2 3 4 5 Develop arid Coach Others 1 2 3 4 5DD. 1 - 2 3 4 5 Structure Developmental Job Assignments 1 2 3 4 5EE. 1 2 3 4 5 Manage aStaff Re-Skilling Effort 1 2 3 4 5FF. 1 2 3 4 5 Plan for Changing Human Resource Requirements 1 2 3 4 5GG. 1 2 3 4 5 Make Future Oriented Staffing Decisions 1 2 3 4 5HH. 1 2 3 4 5 Demonstrate Excel!ence in Functional Management 1 2 3 4 5II. 1 2 3 4 5 Have Knowledge of the Total Business 1 2 3 4 5JJ. 1 2 3 4 5 Demonstrate Competence in Financial Management 1 2 3 4 5KK. 1 2 3 4 5 Demonstrate Competence in Information Systems 1 2 3 4 5

Please list 2-3 additional leadership competencies that will be crucial to competitive success:

Figure 5.12

Target

2. Middle managers

3. Fi rst Iine managers/supervisors

Master Plan Components1. Budget

There are several ways to arrive at a budget fortraining and development. Some organizations calculatedollars or hours of training per employee. Others need toconsider the breakdown of these dollars because there is aprice differential between outside seminars (from col­leges, universities, and consulting/training houses), andinternal training (outside contractors on site, or a do-it­yourself "train the trainers" approach.) The easiestapproach is to simply factor a growth percentage intocurrent budgets and project forward.

But if your group is beginning major culturalchanges, benchmark before budgeting and developing themaster plan. Find out what your competitors are doingand spend more wisely, or look at Motorola and othermodels of excellence for specific curricula guidelines.

Industry standards should be part of the benchmarkfile. Some industry data is available from The AmericanSociety for Training and Development, headquartered inAlexandria, VA, a good source of training help and plan­ning information.

2. AuditResultsAdministration of the QSR (Quality System Review)

questions identifies weak areas in an organization thatshould be pulled out for a closer look (see Figure 4). Oneapproach is to conduct individual focused interviews thatevaluate a worker's current skill set and draw out his per­sonal development goals.

Adifferent approach was taken by asmall high-techstart-up struggling with growth. The human resourcemanager conducted 35 individual interviews with senior­and mid-level managers, accompanied by seven focusgroups of first line managers and supervisors from thesame functional areas. This group approach allowed theresearcher to establish training priorities for specific func­tions - such as purchasing, engineering, and produc­tion. A"wish list" emergedfrom the interviews:

1. General management skills2. Business information needs3. Continuous improvement skills4. Communications skills5. PC training6. New hire training/orientation7. Sales training8. Project management skills.

Corporate Capabilities Profile Summary

The following capabilities were reported as having the highest importance with the lowestcurrent relative strength (by management level).Management Level Capability1. Senior managers Build customer/supplier alliances

Manage innovation

Build customer/supplier alliancesDevelop and coach others

Communicate effectivelyDevelop and coach others

Figure 6. This is an example of the results this survey administered at ahigh-tech start-up.

Training Model

Training tracks for future programs:1. Corporate performance values - This includes problem solving, creative thinking,

building customer/supplier sensitivity, data analysis, facilitating groups, activelistening and communication skills, and working in teams.

2. Business knowledge and information - product information, policies and procedures,MRP

3. Business knowledge - financial and project management, strategic planning,employee selection

4. Technical/functional knowledge - programming languages, material planning,accounting

5. Interpersonal skills - performance evaluation, being a coach, listening and givingfeedback

6. Personal development - writing and presentation skills, time management, stressmanagement.

Figure 7. The results of the corporate capabilities survey will allow human resources to developtraining models like this example.

For an organization with limited resources, butspecific market-driven requirements, enabling specificfunctions to leapfrog old practices with large doses ofpractical training, works. There is a synergy that happenswhen co-workers from the same department learn andexperiment with new practices.

3. Capabilities surveyVarious survey instruments address culture and

training/development issues. To guarantee that trainingresources develop those areas identified by management ashaving high priority, some companies use a capabilitiessurvey which they compare to management priorities tolook for mismatches that need development. (See Figure 5.)

For example, if management rates "being a team"leader as "high importance," but employees evaluate thecompany's relative strength in teams as "very weak," thetask is clear. For the top three or four capabilities thatneed strengthening, the organization can then locate ordesign training to fill the need. (See Figure 6.) Theresults of the corporate capabilities survey will allowhuman resources to develop training models like theexample in Figure 7.

13january/February 1993

"IfMotorola can get500 communitycolleges teachingbest-in-practiceskills to the supplybase! we'll raise thequality level ofthiscountry overnight. "Paul Brault

14

Target

Stsp Thres, Rsward RBSUlts, BuildAccountabilityTraining without accountability wastes time and

money. Although the U. S. educational system has experi­mented with numerous pass/fail options, industry doesn'thave the luxury of doing just "pass" on quality againstcompetitors producing no defects. So shouldn't the goalsof a training program be equally specific?

There is a great danger that many institutions see­ing a decline in the 18-24 year old population will seizeadult education and retraining as their new market,without the report cards that guarantee customer satis­faction. Is the educational system's true customer the stu­dent, the administration, or industry? Without answeringthat primary question, it's easy to see how education andtraining needs lose their alignment with administrativeand budget issues. Training without accountability ­tests without grades, pass/fail- isn't good enough.

Awonderful example of industry rewarding seriousemployee dedication to learning new technologies comesfrom Molex, an Illinois connector producer. The connectorindustry continues to become more competitive; stayingahead reqUires extremely high quality, and superior designskills, as well as a global presence, all of which Molex isdedicated to. Three generations of the Krehbiel family workthere; each family member "pays his dues," and preparesfor management by learning several job functions, get­ting to know as many of the employees as possible.Although the company is approaching the half-billiondollar mark, it still has the feeling of asmall company.

An indication of Molex' management dedication tohelping employees grow and retain the small companyenvironment is special attention to training and develop­ment. For example, students who complete a rigorousfive-week advanced statistics course are hosted at anawards luncheon. President John Krehbiel, Jr., presentseach student with ten shares of company stock, a trueinvestment in human capital.

What's Good for First Tisr Is Good for Sscond...?What happens to second-tier producers, suppliers to

the excellence models like Motorola and Xerox? Is thejourney the same for them?

The answer is no. It is unrealistic and deceptive toexpect a supplier to Honda, for example, to replicate theMarysville facility, mirroring organization structures, mea­surement and control systems, and workforce training.

Honda needs suppliers that can at minimum pre­dictably and consistently meet quality and delivery time-

liness standards Small suppliers, because of their size andbecause they are further upstream, do not have the sameproduction issues as their downstream customers. Aplas­tic instrument panel parts supplier to an auto assemblyplant, for example, is working not only with differenttechnologies and different technical problems, cosmetics .in plastics, for example, but different environmental andprocess as well as workforce issues.

The workforce at a first-tier supplier usually earnssignificantly more than most second-tier suppliers. As GMhas learned, assembly labor averages from $15-$25 perhour, plus extensive health and other benefit costs; attheir second-tier suppliers, many of whom will be takingthe hit for big cost reductions, wages fall into the $8-$15per hour range. The training needs and delivery methodsamong these diverse groups are also very different.

One approach to small supplier development is topool resources so that small- and mid-size companieshave access to wider course choices, and so they canshare the expense.

Nypro, a $150 million/year Massachusetts plasticsproducer, and the site of two AME workshops, is leverag­ing its very aggressive training and development activitiesby partnering with various expert training sources. NyproInstitute, located in a restored 18th century carpet millon the Nashua River in Clinton, MA, started 14 years agoas a small training program. It evolved to offering non­credit and college credit courses leading to associates andMBA degrees. Their Certificate in Plastics Technologyincludes courses in the company's bread and butter­injection molding, mold design, polymeric materials,blueprint reading, hydraulics and pneumatics, industrialelectrical maintenance, SPC, and principles of supervision.

Courses are populated half with insiders and halfwith outsiders - customers, suppliers, even competitors,most of whom are small regional molders for whomNypro prOVides resources they cannot afford. Outsiderspay $225 per course. (The institute runs as a cost center,not for profit.) It runs four courses per semester. Lastsemester 120 students participated in the certificationprogram; over 500 were enrolled in Nypro Institute. Theinstitute delivered a total of 10,000 hours of training, allwithout prompting from company incentive programs.

Paul Jensen, the corporate director of training anddevelopment, describes the program as "highly lever­aged;" Paul is the only full-time trainer. The institutedraws on faculty resources from nearby educational insti-

tutions to supplement in-house professionals doubling astrainers - the plastics certificate program partners withFitchburg State College, plastics seminars are shared withthe University of Lowell, computer classes use Catapult (atraining house); associates' degree courses may be taughtby professors from Mount Wachusett Community College.The new MBA program is partnered with full-time profes­sors from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (Nypro Presi­dent Gordon Lankton sits on their board). According toJensen, forming alliances with academic and traininghouses "provides lots of different topics with low staff. Wewill never have abig training department."

Expanding the program into other plant sites, ofwhich there are 12 more, is the next challenge for Jensen.He plans to use computer-based interactive training, andvideo-conferencing to the other facilities.

Consortia Target SuppliersFurther, a few SEMATECH members, including Dig­

ital Equipment Corporation, Motorola, Texas Instru­ments have formed an educational group, the Consor­tium, that offers courses to interested organizationsbeyond the original Consortium members, includingcommunity colleges linked to small suppliers.

The educational Consortium is reviewing plans tolocate training centers in various spots across the UnitedStates. In New England two centers have been agreedupon; plans were to have five in place by the end of 1992,each offering three Motorola licensed courses. Mr. Braultfeels that community colleges prOVide a good match withthe consortium's mission. because most suppliers are

Figure 8. Phil Nietupski, Nypro engineer, Clinton students Jon Payne and Hugo Mederios, andaU.S. FIRST Competition referee from Dartmouth College Thayer School of Engineering.

located within 50 miles of a community college, of whichthere are 1222 in the United States.

As further proof of their commitment, in February1992, the Consortium met with a group of 18 leadingcommunity colleges called the League for Innovation.The Consortium threw out a challenge to the innovationproponents to practice what they preach - the TQM phi­losophy - and they have taken up the challenge to pro­vide TQM training to administrators and professors.

The price of membership in the Consortium isanother innovation - a company must sponsor a col­lege; the group is totally non-profit, with no dues. Digital,for example, plans to sponsor a community college in

15January/February 1993

16Target

Boston. Pairing industry leaders with educators guaran­tees the accountability of program design; curriculumdelivery must support industry needs.

Why would Motorola share its courses with organi­zations that are not suppliers? According to Mr. Brault, "IfMotorola can get 500 community colleges teaching best­in-practice skills to the supply base, we'll raise the qualitylevel of this country overnight." The added benefit ofcourse is that this education collaboration fosters coopera­tion among corporations.

Almost every college and company contacted aboutthe Consortium has a positive response - "where do wesign!" One limitation on sudden expansion is that eachcollege must have a corporate sponsor, and an adVisoryboard will manage expansion of the program. The organi­zation will perform quality audits over time.

Any company that gets involved with Baldrige knowsthere are many sections in the criteria that talk aboutwhat companies are doing with suppliers. When compa­nies start educating suppliers on one level, they will wantto progress to the next. Brault summarizes the Consor­tium strategy, "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to under­stand that as you start improving quality, you need fewersuppliers, and those have to be very good. And where dothey get the materials to be very good? We want to givethem the materials to improve."

The Consortium approach is to look at establishedcollege systems as a distribution channel. The group alsohelps standardize quality instruction across various com­panies. The intent is to also limit the number of variousquality audits customers impose on their suppliers.

Are We Ready for "Certified Workers?"Other second-tier development efforts are springing

up everywhere. One of the most intriguing visions of work­force development popped up in a full-page IndustryWeek ad pitching Virginia as a place where employees"speak TQM and ISO 9000." Clearly aimed at northerncompanies thinking about relocation to the south, theadded benefit is the availability of trained and "quality­literate" workers, a very attractive alternative to northerncompanies struggling with education problems andunion/management issues. Imagine a prospective indus­trial park company sitting down with local governmentand real estate executives to review the start-up package.The checklist includes taxes and tax incentives, highwayand airport location, and the number of certified workersavailable per functional category!

The United States used to have apprenticeship pro­grams for employees like machinists and welders. Industryparticipated fully in the programs, classifications were stan­dardized, and employers knew whom they were hiring.Although restructuring of the machine tool industry hasreduced the number of highly skilled machinists, the needfor well-trained and clearly described work skills has notgone away. The requirements have become more complexand simpler at the same time; employers require more com­plex technical skills with computer design systems, forexample, but simpler basic performance requirements likeEnglish-language competency and on-the-job literacy.

One of the accountability goals of workforce trainingand development programs should be astandardized systemof certifying workers. The program may be as simple as aseries of checklists certifying that the worker has completed aseries of courses designed by Motorola, for example, to devel­op competency in basic statistical control. Or, going beyondthe checklist of completed courses, the program could be acombination of completed exams, mentoring, and intern­ships. Without this very deliberate approach to workforcedevelopment, the United States will continue to operate witha hodge-podge of internal and external training assess­ments, and uneven functional skill levels.

How Not to Approach Workforce Development

"The hardest thing is to give nwney away. "Dave Nelson.

Money helps but it doesn't talk - it won't supply allthe answers. Recently a group of large and small compa­nies were invited to a three-day conference to explore howthey would collaborate with various state and federal gov­ernment groups to help small suppliers. The governmenthas big sums of money, some diverted from DARPA(Defense Advanced Research Programs Agency), to use forhelping small second- and third-tier companies, but ques­tions like how to use the funds, who should administertheir use, specifically what courses do suppliers need, andhow much time can employees take for training need to beanswered before the checks are cut.

The original conference Consortium agenda changed asmembership shifted. Millions of training dollars will get spentno matter who attends the meetings, but the course offeringsmay not reflect the needs of small suppliers or their large cus­tomers, because the voice of industry is not loud enough.

Government spending priorities need to reflect thetrue needs of competitive business. Unfortunately, the easysafe training money choice is the big (and getting bigger)

umbrella of total quality. Like the monster that devouredCleveland, the total quality umbrella has grown, develop­ing a life of its own, moving on, fed by post-Baldrigeregional quality awards, ISO, and an army of consultants,sopping up functions as it goes. First to be devoured wereinspection and quality control; next were accounting,finance, order administration. Empowerment may be thenext victim. The problem with big solutions is they tend tolose focus. Many manufacturing organizations, althoughthey practice quality control techniques, are dropping theacronym in favor of specific quality tools selected for spe­cific problem-solving situations.

Government has difficulty hearing what industrysays, not because well-intentioned administrators areignorant bureaucrats, but because industry is not speak­ing in a voice that is big enough and clear enough to beheard. Big customers and their supplier networks mustbecome education and workforce development leaders.They need to define how government and educationalinstitutions can help industry reach competitive goals,whether they want to reach Six Sigma, or apply for theBaldrige, or prepare for ISO registration.

Government alone is not the answer to prOVidingresources for small business' need for certified workers.Can academia help? You guessed the answer. Unfortunate­ly, academics are still not rewarded for taking sabbaticalsin real world industry. Their research bases often build onliterature searches, rather than stints on the assembly lineor in the boardroom ("Banana Time," a rare example ofan organizational behavior case study written by anassembly line worker turned professor, excepted).

The answer to the questions of what are certifiedworkers, and how to develop them has to come fromindustry, driven by customers, supported by like-mindedimprovement'consortia like the Association for Manufac­turing Excellence, the Council for Logistics Management,and the American Production and Inventory Control Society.

Industry Talks to Academe1\vo years ago Richard Cole, the chairman of Lytron,

a Massachusetts producer of heat exchangers, also amem­ber of the corporation of Wentworth Institute in Boston,decided to do something about the shortcomings he saw inengineering and manufacturing job applicants. Cole wasconcerned that "young people do not perceive the careeropportunities in manufacturing as being attractive andmany of those who do are not adequately prepared."

Cole talked with industry colleagues, and the con-

sensus on what was missing was that newly-minted grad­uates generally were weak in:

1. Engineering fundamentals - basic technicalunderstanding and the ability to assimilate newproblems qUickly. Although new graduates might havelearned computer-aided design, they lacked the insightthat comes from more traditional drafting experience.

2. There was universal concern over poor communi­cation skills - writing, speaking, and drawing.

The general conclusion was that the existingapproach to hands-on experience and class work wasn'tdoing the job.

Cole felt that the problem wasn't unique to Went­worth graduates, but that "as a general standards deterio­ration issue, we were slipping. Standards come up againand again. There has been a general deterioration inquality - quality of secondary school education prepara­tion, quality of program applicants, and a lack of criticalstandards for the engineering programs."

Acontributor to the problem seemed to be thatschools feel compelled to offer more and more specializedcourses. Offerings have increased, but the school year andthe length of the "class hour" have not. His observationsfrom Lytron led him to recognize the need to specificallyeducate for careers in manufacturing - "we need morehands-on engineers, a curriculum with lots of time in thelabs and shop. Yet it also needs to be grounded in basicfundamentals and science."

Meeting first with the president of Wentworth, Coleasked to "do something for the school." They talked aboutthe problem, formed a committee, developed new courses,and started a program of curriculum reform that resultedin a new four-year manufacturing degree program.

Wentworth President John Van Domelen agreed withCole's assessment of the educational gaps: "One of the realproblems in the United States is that engineering has funda­mentally abandoned the manufacturing areas. The fitbetween the theoretical engineer who is being graduated andthe type of job that is necessary on the production floor is notgood. There has to be a practical application in the realityof the workplace and it just has not been there before."

The program is revolutionary. Cole's recommenda­tions on a revised educational program included:

1. Raisestandards; make them "acut above;" recruit heavilyand offer significant financial aid so that no qualifiedapplicants will choose not to enroll because of costs;

17January/February 1993

18

Target

2. Review the curriculum with an eye toward broadrevisions, preparing for "life-long learning" inscience, physics, chemistry, math, communications,drafting and drawing, and manufacturing processes;

3. "Enlightened self-interest." Every freshman student hasan industrial mentor, a senior manager of a companywho works with the student for four years, providinggUidance on course selection, summer jobs, co-opprograms, and placements, in addition to a facultyadvisor. From the standpoint of the mentors, makingan invaluable contribution to the school will comearound to what Cole calls "enlightened self-interest. Itcuts both ways. Students will be better prepared tosucceed and industry will fill acritical need for talent."

4. Accountability. Each student will take the Society ofManufacturing Engineers exam at the end of thefourth year.

5. Concentrations. The program offers concentrationsin parts manufacturing, product assembly, or factorymanagement. In the third and fourth years there isconsiderable fleXibility to choose electives, andpursue special projects and co-op assignments in thearea of concentration.

Workforce Literacy - Who Cares?"Being able to read is so fantastic! It's the best high I'veever had. mjust a new beginning is what it is. It's likebeing reborn. " Bob Drogmund, Chip Scow Scheduler,

Fir and Hemlock Division, Simpson Timber Co.

Training and development for some companiesamounts to basic adult literacy. People need to masterbasic reading and writing skills before they take a seat ina quality control training class.

Adult literacy is a shadow problem in the UnitedStates. Thousands of very bright motivated employeeshave managed to bluff, hide, and fake their way throughschool into the workplace. They need our help. Some whohave been diagnosed as dysleXiC, having been labeled andcompartmentalized, may need even more help.

Companies like Simpson Timber have tried newapproaches to this skill problem with an effort run mostlyby employee volunteers, for employees. Although tutorsneed to learn from a reading consultant how to recognizethe three basic forms of reading problems, once they havelearned to recognize them, they develop a learning pro­gram for each student.

Why and how workers manage to slip through the

system is really not important. What is critical, however, isrecogniZing that good employees sometimes need help toget better. Although massive culture change is sometimestoo big and imposing to try, people helping people, workingwith what we've got, sounds sensible, agood place to start.

ConclusionThere are many other individual examples of innova­

tive workforce development programs like the ones we havelooked at from Motorola, the Consortium, Honda, Went­worth Institute, and other groups. What they have in com­mon is recognition of the fact that our workforce will bearound long after we have discarded that newest piece ofhigh-tech capital equipment. For our manufacturing baseto re-structure and grow into strong linkages of "islands ofexcellence," all partners need to be equally skilled in thebasics - total quality andJIT - as well as other "fuzzier"skills such as communications and team skills.

Government and academia won't solve this problem.The answers have to come from industry, often driven bybig customers, the people who are closest to definingmanufacturing needs, and the ones who have the mostexperience developing solutions. The solutions won'tcome until more industry leaders like Dick Cole and U.S.FIRST (see Maize Craze, p. 15) get moving and start pro­grams to get the best they can for their money.

Acknowledgments:Richard Cole, President ofLytron, Woburn, M4Bonnie Klane, Director ofHuman Resource Manage­ment, EMC CorporationPaulJensen, Nypro InstituteThanks to Paul Brault, Motorola, for his help on Motoro­la and the Consortium workforce development pro­grams at theAEME Spring 1992 Chicago Conference.

Patricia E. Moody is Target editor and a member ofAME'sNortheast Board of Directors. She is a certified manufacturingconsultant, co-authored Strategic ManufactUring, Dynamic NewDirections for the 1990s, and teaches operations management atSimmons College, Boston, MA. Her next book, BreakthroughPartnering, Building Excellent Customer/Supplier Networks, will bepublished in 1993 by Oliver Wight Publications.

© 1993AME

t!