Lean Processes Lay Golden Egg for Simmons Foods

by Eliminating Millions in Waste

Consisting of five divisions and $738 million in sales, Simmons Foods (Siloam Springs, Ark.) is one of the top ten private companies in the poultry business. With an impressive customer roster that is focused on serving the leading 100 food service restaurant chains and mass merchandisers, the company has been anything but chicken in its quest for pushing lean transformation throughout its enterprise. However, Simmons had found that earlier ventures into lean manufacturing garnered some achievements, but were not being sustained.

“We were viewing lean as a set of tools,” said Todd Simmons, president and COO. “We had hired a consultant to teach and lead a kaizen event at our Van Buren Main Street plant. And, although successful, we knew there had to be more to lean than just events.”

Around 2002, the company began researching lean and discovered the Lean Learning Center (Novi, Mich.). The Center's philosophy of teaching the rules and thinking of lean, rather than just focusing on events and tools, seemed fresh and sensible to the Simmons team. To test the waters, Simmons sent five executive level personnel to the Center's five-day Lean Experience class. Here participants internalize lean through personal experience and application. “Many of our clients find that our focus on ‘lean thinking’ is the most unique part of our offerings,” added Jamie Flinchbaugh, Lean Learning Center partner. “We look beyond the typical lean tools and concentrate on helping people internalize lean concepts, affecting the way they think about what they do and why they do it each and every day.”

The Center's teaching techniques are tailored to develop lean leaders and thinkers. Concepts are taught through a variety of multi-sensory methods including discovery, case study, peer evaluation, personal action planning, journaling and simulation exercises, such as the beer game or airplane factory.

Initial reaction to Day One of the Lean Experience had the Simmons team thinking they'd made a mistake. How could they transfer lean thinking knowledge to a group of employees with high turnover and English as a second language? But, by mid-week of the class, the light bulb went on and lean now seemed a solution to solve those issues and to cross barriers of communication.

To verify their feelings, Simmons sent three more groups inclusive of people in the managerial level to the Lean Experience. This created a groundswell of support with everyone involved asking, “What are we waiting for?”

Bringing Lean to the Plants

With 4500 employees spread among its various divisions and facilities, Simmons knew there was no way it could send everyone to the Center for training. So, with the help of Flinchbaugh and partner Ron Holcomb, they brought the Lean Experience down to Arkansas, initially concentrating on the Poultry division but then spreading it to the rest of the company. Mark Evans, Lonnie Coates, Seth Kaufman, and Daron Sharp were designated to receive training to teach the course with Evans named Lean Leader of the initiative. To ramp the team up to the task, Flinchbaugh and Holcomb helped team team-teach their first course, audited while they took on the challenge of their second session and, by the third time, the team was running solo.

Simmons committed to running monthly Lean Experience classes with 30 people in attendance comprised of 3 - 5 people from various departments. The company also started a Lean Learning Lab (L3) in the production department at the Siloam Springs Further Processing plant. Said Holcomb, “An L3 is designed to provide a framework for companies to learn, experiment with, and apply the rules, principles and tools of lean within a shop floor environment.”

Formalizing the rollout

Given that Simmons had implemented some lean events in the past, the team wanted to differentiate this effort, which was focused on the internalization of lean. “Our philosophy has been to explain to our people the WHY of lean, not just an application of the lean tools,” commented Evans. With this came a new name for lean, called BEST - Better, Easier, Safer and make it happen Today.

With BEST came a structure to roll lean throughout the organization. In addition to teaching the Lean Experience to all 525 salaried team members and 100 hourly team members, the company has developed three one hour modules that are taught to all hourly employees. And, the company has an established goal of running 11 lean events each month. These can be in the form of kaizens, 5 S, or demonstrations.

For example, the company ran a kaizen in its popcorn chicken area where it was seeing a cost difference of about $0.03/lb between shifts as well as a difference in product taste and appearance. A cook-comparison test was developed where differences between shifts were identified, allowing a standard process flow to be set up. Additionally, cost reduction was achieved on both shifts, saving the company over $23,000 in three weeks time. By sustaining these results, savings will approach $400,000 for the year.

In 2008 the company will unveil another week-long class called BEST 2.0 for all salaried team members. “Where the Lean Experience was designed to be a mile wide and inch deep, BEST 2.0 was developed to dig another inch deeper across the whole organization,” said Evans.

To help accomplish these goals, Simmons has appointed Lean Coordinators to supervise lean efforts at each location. Additionally, there is a Lean Facilitator at the Corporate Office who reports to Mark Evans. The Faciliator supports the Lean Coordinators, leads and teaches lean events.

Key to the success of lean is empowerment of each employee; that each person understands that their viewpoint and their contribution is valuable. A few years back, Simmons had begun a suggestion program called the “Golden Egg Program,” where team members were incentivized to come up with cost savings programs. “What we discovered,” said Todd Simmons, “is that the program was counter to creating a lean culture. Rather than creating a team environment, it evoked a culture of paranoia where everyone was secretively looking for that 'home run' idea instead of the base hits that might save $100 here and there.” In five years, the company received 65 ideas.

Since BEST, Simmons has revamped its idea program in a very structured manner. The results are astounding. In 2005, the company implemented 1221 ideas out of 2380 submitted. In 2006, those numbers increased to 3,836 ideas applied out of 6,717 submitted. This year, the company is on track to use 4,300 ideas out of the 7,000 submitted! The company has set a goal for each employee to submit two ideas each month. Employees can submit their suggestions by filling out a simple form and returning it to their Lean Coordinator.

Additionally, Simmons has created a lean database to share knowledge throughout the organization. Employees can submit a success, failure, or key learning moment. In 2007, there has been an average of 17 postings per week.

Ironically, suggestions can seem counter to what people believe to be lean. Said Todd Simmons “For example, we had an employee who inspects chicken between the fryer and the freezer. There was only four feet of space between these two pieces of equipment, providing no time for the temperature of the chicken to equilabriate. This caused steam in the freezer and frequent defrosts. By actually lengthening the line by 10 feet, this problem was eliminated without adversely impacting production. Additionally, it created a better environment for the worker who was stuck between hot or freezing temperatures.”

Measuring Success

When Simmons began its journey, an Ideal State was defined for the organization - 100% customer driven, using its Lean lens to drive: 0 incidents, 0 defects, 0 shortages, 0 waste and 0 fear. Simmons uses Safety, Quality, Delivery, Cost and Morale to measure the program. In its quest for the ideal state, the company has made some impressive improvements.

The company's OSHA recordables have been reduced by 12% this year. The number of customer complaints has been reduced by 25%. Shortages have been reduced by 5%. And, cost savings have been almost $16 million in eliminated waste in less than a year.

Keeping company morale up is never easy during change. To help get all team members on board with lean, Simmons made a promise that no employee would lose their job because of a lean improvement. A person's position may get eliminated, but the person would not be. Added Evans, “The success of the idea program pretty well illustrates our company morale.”

To sustain lean, every plant has communication meetings where they share successes and failures. All the facilities have implemented visual learning tools such as lean scorecards and scoreboards. Additionally, Todd Simmons sends out a monthly email to managers, which includes an area highlighting the Better, Easier, Safer, Today mindset.

Future Challenges

Simmons has set a goal to eliminate $24 million in waste this year. Says Todd Simmons, “We've had great success in the plants, because waste is easier to see. Our next step is to reduce waste from our business processes. It is much harder to map a process that you can't physically see or touch.”

With such success experienced by the Prepared Foods group, Simmons is now rolling out lean to the Pet Foods division. And, it must be noted that The Lean Learning Center's involvement with Simmons certainly didn't end in the classroom. Flinchbaugh and Holcomb have assisted along the entire journey from education to Lean Learning Labs to Lean Assessments. And, Holcomb spends one week every other month at Simmons to assess and coach with particular problems. “Simmons is an excellent example of true lean transformation. It has gone beyond the tools of lean and developed a common lens, language and thinking of lean to successfully change its whole culture for the better.”