Change management

Ignore your people, and your lean journey will run out of gas

by David Berger

One of the greatest challenges management faces in implementing lean

manufacturing is ensuring that real behavioural change takes place at all levels of the
organization. Even the most well-intentioned, fair and respected management team,
without the enthusiastic embracing of the changes contemplated, will watch their
plant revert back to old and familiar ways. Without a solid change management
program weaved into the lean manufacturing initiative, as well as strong leadership,
the project is doomed from the start.

The term lean manufacturing itself can be problematic in that some workers see lean
= job loss. Unless management identifies and deals openly with this and other
significant barriers, real change can never be sustained.

Management must see the world through the eyes of those being asked to embrace
the lean initiative, and answer the simple question on each stakeholder's mind:
What's in it for me? Research has shown that the person most likely to credibly
answer this question for the line workers is their immediate supervisor.

Unfortunately, the first-line supervisor is usually the most ill-equipped to provide the
answers. This is because typically first-line supervisors get little management training
especially in the area of change management. They are also tightly sandwiched
between the performance expectations demanded by senior management and the
day-to-day pressures of dealing with the front
line resources.

Here are 10 tips to assist line employees and their immediate supervisors understand
and fully embrace the changes required for lean to succeed:
• 1. Develop a shared vision of where the corporation is headed over the long term,
and make it clear how the lean manufacturing initiative supports that vision.
• 2. Ensure there are strong signs of top management support such as showing up for
meetings, allocation of proper funding, and ensuring actions are consistent with
words. This support should translate into commitments by middle and front-line
management, such as change management training and involvement in project
planning and communication.
• 3. The implementers of the change, ie, the front line, must understand and embrace
the change. Understanding and readiness for the change can be tested at key
milestones in the project through formal interviews and surveys, and / or informal
channels such as meetings with first-line supervisors.
• 4. Senior business people with solid leadership skills should be removed from their
regular duties to focus on implementing the lean program. They should be properly
trained in lean techniques and given adequate support such as internal and external
project resources.
• 5. Allow sufficient time for implementation, typically six months to several years.
This should not be confused with the very short-term focus of a given Kaizen blitz or
the coming and going of a given manager.
• 6. Establish performance measurement targets to define what a successful lean
implementation looks like.
• 7. Create a communications plan that provides regular updates to all stakeholders,
and provides a feedback mechanism for those managing the lean program.
• 8. Education / training must be provided for each stakeholder group, with respect to
the nature and benefits of the changes anticipated.
• 9. Anticipate resistance to change, especially if there is a history of poorly
implemented changes. Develop a plan for managing that resistance. Make sure that
the pain of implementing lean is seen to be less of a pain than the status quo.
• 10. Offer rewards for the early adopters of lean manufacturing, and consequences
for those that continue to resist. Rewards can be as simple as pizza brought in for
lunch when performance targets are met. Consequences such as peer rejection or
isolation can be effective when someone does not try to make a change work.

A regular contributor to Advanced Manufacturing, and other manufacturing journals,

David Berger P. Eng. is with Western Management Consultants. You can reach him
at (416) 362-6863 or by email at: david@wmc.on.ca.

SIDEBAR - lean case study

Aircraft parts maker goes lean

The company: The Parker Hannifin Aircraft Wheel & Brake Division
The product: Designer and manufacturer of aerospace commercial and military
wheel and brake systems.
The challenge: To reduce high finished goods, spares components and work-in-
process inventory levels and the need to reduce long engineering and manufacturing
cycle times.
The project objectives:
• 1. Reduce total Final Assembly (F-A) cycle time from 30 to 15 days.
• 2. Reduce F-A Finished Goods cycle time from 20 to 10 days.
• 3. Redesign F-A operations to:
a. Integrate product-lines where feasible;
b. Kit, build, pack & ship in one day;
c. Optimize available floor space;
d. Minimize operational transportation.
Measured results:
• 1. Implemented "one-piece flow" philosophy;
a. Eliminated Build-to-Stock paradigm.
b. Eliminated F-A 2nd shift;
c. Reduced F-A Cycle Time from 31 to 4 days;
d. Reduced F-A finished goods cycle time from 19.5 to 2.5 days;
• 2. Saved approximately 3,200 sq. ft. of F-A floor space (40 percent of area);
a. Integrated four product-lines into three;
b. Reduced Transportation up to 30 percent.
This case study was provided by FlowCycle (www.flowcycle.com), a Dallas,
Texas-based lean manufacturing consulting and training firm. FlowCycle's president,
John Ballis, authored the Advanced Thinking essay in this issue. This case study is
the first in a series of brief, hands-on lean manufacturing success stories we will
publish in upcoming issues.

Cycle Time after improvements: On the left, before "process flow" improvement: two
separate product lines. On the right, after "process flow" improvement: two product
lines converted into one.
flowcycle inc. www.flowcycle.com