Heartland of America Company Takes the Path to Lean

The old adage: "if it isn't broken, why fix it" is often the attitude taken by many companies, especially if there's a history of longevity and industry success. But in today's highly competitive marketplace, the smart manufacturers are taking the necessary steps to reduce waste and eliminate inefficiencies in order to remain successful and maintain a prominent position in their chosen industries.

Such is the case with Chicago-based Chicago Metallic Division (CMD), an industry leader in roll forming suspension systems for acoustical ceilings and decorative metal ceiling products for commercial, institutional and industrial building markets. The parent company, Chicago Metallic Corporation, was established in 1893 as a manufacturer of stained glass sash bar. Maintaining its roots in the heartland of America, the company is today a worldwide leader of architectural building products and services, including metal ceiling systems, prefinished door frames and coil coatings.

One of the first things Chuck Bub, vice president and general manager for the Chicago Metallic Division, wanted to accomplish when he joined the company in 1999 was to introduce the concepts of lean. He had been exposed to lean tools in the past and saw what it could accomplish. He also noticed all the areas in the company that hadn't been analyzed for efficiency.

Serendipity?

Call it an accident or call it serendipitous, but just as Bub was starting to search for ways to expose the company to lean, he received a flyer in the mail announcing an upcoming presentation on the basic concepts of lean.

Marketed by Saddle Island Institute in Chicago, the public seminar was co-presented by Andy Carlino, president of Achievement Dynamics, Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., and Jamie Flinchbaugh, a partner with the Lean Learning Center, Novi, Mich. The two companies had recently announced a corporate alliance to provide a seamless array of lean services to existing and potential customers. The Lean Learning Center provides a lean curriculum to a variety of industries, while Achievement Dynamics provides consultant-type services on lean principles and practices.

Eight management level employees attended representing engineering, manufacturing, marketing and sales departments from both Chicago Metallic and its sister division, CFM - Companies.

"The easiest way to convince key management that lean was a good idea was to expose them to the experts," says Bub. "The initial reaction was excitement and enthusiasm. Although I had experience with lean tools in the past, I was not aware of the lean thought process. For me this seminar opened the door to a wealth of possibilities."

Following the seminar, the next step was figuring out what the "next step" should be. How should the attendees best communicate to a broad audience everything they learned at the seminar? And, although Chicago Metallic Corporation's CEO had a working knowledge of lean and was supportive of the idea, they still wanted to "sell" the idea and thoroughly convince him that it was a worthwhile undertaking.

The decision was made to invite Andy Carlino to Chicago for a half day presentation to 30 senior and middle management people from CMD and CFM.

"Andy came in and gave a four-hour talk conveying the ideas and concepts of the rules and principles of lean," says Bub. "His half day visit actually turned into a full day, because he had us divide up into teams and walk through the plants to jot down what we saw as waste, based on his presentation. Reviewing our lists created astonishment and excitement. We discovered we could accomplish a lot by observation, attacking the problem areas and making changes".

Bub estimates that in a normal organization, waste can be as much as 40 percent of overall costs, most of which he believes can be eliminated by using the right tools and rules.

The commitment

With a commitment made to pursue lean through Achievement Dynamics and the Lean Learning Center, the first step was to send four employees from CMD and four from CFM to the Center for a five-day Lean Experience Course. Attended by Bub and directors of operations and marketing and sales, the in-depth lean workshop is based upon the premise that lean rules and principles must be internalized by employees in order to maintain success. During the five days, students are exposed to a variety of learning methods including discovery, simulation, case studies, personal planning and journaling.

Learning through discovery and experience combined with asking the right questions and interaction with other adults is a large part of the Center's teaching method. The belief is that lean - at its most basic level - is defined as a shared way of thinking. Its philosophy is based upon the idea that lean tools are largely ineffective unless they are supported by the proper foundation of lean guiding principles and rules to help an organization understand how things work together and why.

"We really got down to the basics regarding the concept of lean during that five-day period," says Bub. "Going through the rules and principles of lean, followed by sessions to help understand the practical uses of the rules and principles was an intensive undertaking. And this was our formal company commitment to take the path to lean."

Back to the plant

How does one take all this information from this intensive five-day course back to the plant? How does one continue on the "path to lean"? The answer was an After Action Review meeting with Carlino to develop an action plan for implementation.

One of the first items to come out of the action plan meeting was the development of a presentation that would "cascade" through the entire Chicago Metallic Division organization. Starting with upper management's staff and continuing downward through the organization, the one-hour presentation included a video from the CEO that endorsed lean. The remainder of the presentation entailed exposing employees to the principles and rules of lean. Bub would attend more than 90 percent of the presentations as a further endorsement that this was not a fad, but a serious undertaking for the company.

It took less than two months for all CMD employees at its manufacturing plants in Chicago, Baltimore and Los Angeles to attend the presentation and get their first exposure to lean.

A next step was to appoint a lean specialist. Long-time CMD employee and manager of quality assurance Bob Tunney was the logical choice. Although he still keeps his former position, his staff was expanded in order for him to spend approximately 50-70 percent of his time on lean issues.

"We needed that kind of commitment," says Bub. "Bob was a good choice because he knows the organization and he has adapted to all the changes very rapidly."

Getting started and implementing lean presented challenges. The biggest one being the employee's comfort zone. Bub says taking people out of their comfort zone created concern. Changing the organization, accountability and activity structure created tension.

"I'll use Andy's example here," says Bub. "It's similar to taking a rubber band and stretching it from the current state to the ideal state. The more you want to obtain, the tighter the stretch and this creates more tension in the organization. We had to be careful not to get too much tension, because that becomes debilitating. But you have to have tension in order to work toward the ideal state. It's a fine line and a real challenge."

Since the initial Lean Learning training session, Chicago Metallic has sent other employees to the Center on nine different occasions. The company is utilizing a parallel process, where ADI is helping at the plant level while lean specialists are being trained through curriculum. Unlike other companies that simply provide the tools of lean, ADI and the Center provide a seamless array of lean transformation services.

The plan was not to have Carlino and Flinchbaugh become permanent consultants at CMD, but through intensive training and over a period of time Chicago Metallic would internalize lean principles and rules within the company requiring only periodic reviews of their progress by ADI.

To arrive at this self-sufficient stage, learning lines were developed at the CMD plants and numerous Value Stream Mapping events and Kaizens were conducted.

"The good thing about Value Stream Mapping," says Bub, "is that it will highlight your problems and then after identifying the problems you can attack them and take corrective action". This corrective action might involve a Kaizen event or something else. We are constantly examining different processes and mapping with the goal of identifying constraints and problems, and then initiating improvements.

Kaizens

The first Kaizen was performed in the door frame area in June 2002. Door frame manufacturing was chosen because it was highly visible to the rest of the company and as one of the company's newer products, there was a lot of room for improvement.

"Our goal was to improve the capacity throughput through that cell," says Bub. "By re-laying out the cell and applying the lean rules and principles, we were able to double the capacity. In other words, we're now able to get twice as much material through that cell with very little in the way of increased labor cost."

Other results

A combination 5S and Kaizen event was conducted at CMD's plant number three. By moving the storage area, cleaning, adding visuals and work instructions to make it more efficient, the entire plant was reorganized.

"The result was significant," says Bub. "An additional 25,000 square feet of manufacturing space was recaptured. This was a major improvement."

Another major Kaizen event involved the metal ceilings cell. Originally housed in 85,000 square feet of space in plant number five, the cell was moved into another plant and re-laid out into 30,000 square feet of space. The 85,000 square feet facility will now be used by another part of the corporation.

Incorporating lean has not resulted in employee cutbacks, says Bub. Instead, there have been reassignments and focus on building the "lean" team.

"More employees are becoming part of the lean team," says Bub. "We've identified four lean specialists and have provided a training ground for future advancement. We view this as a way to strengthen our organization while at the same time developing people and furthering their careers."

Lean is a culture

Bub explains the "lean is a culture" philosophy.

Lean has principles and rules. Lean has an ideal state that you're trying to get to. You have to basically change your thought process if you're going to become a lean company. And, you have to obey the rules and principles to get you where you want to go. It's the entire group pulling together, understanding what the company is trying to accomplish and complying with the rules and principles. One example Andy cited in his presentation was, if everyone in the United States decided tomorrow that we wouldn't stop at stop lights and would drive as fast as we wanted to, there would be chaos. The same applies to our business. There would be chaos if we didn't comply with the rules and principles of lean.

The future

The future is now, says Bub. CMD is continuing to identify areas that are in need of streamlining to make them more efficient and reduce waste.

"It's a constant, never-ending process," says Bub. "When someone says they're a lean company, my first thought is that this person obviously doesn't understand. Because you're never a lean company. You're always striving to be lean, but you never get there, because one action always precipitates another. The best way to describe it is by saying 'we're in the process of applying the rules and principles of lean to our activities'."

As of January 2003, Bub estimates that the company is handling 90 percent of lean activities internally. The plan is to have the Lean Learning Center/Achievement Dynamics return quarterly to review CMD's progress and to assist with major Kaizen events (such as a new product launch).

"We've gone through a solid year of lean activity," says Bub. "LLC/ADI has been outstanding throughout the process. One of the things I've learned over the last year is to be very careful about making the transition to lean too quickly, because you can really open yourself up to a lot of frustration, busy work, pressure and tension. We've had to be very sensitive to the organization itself and the experts at LLC/ADI have been tremendously helpful on our path to lean."

As of mid-February, CMD's parent company, Chicago Metallic Corporation, has a new CEO, Richard McClain.

"Our new CEO is very much into the lean thought process," says Bub. "My best guess is that the entire corporation will soon be taking the same lean path."