Stories of Leadership, Lean, and Learning
Critical problems seem to happen over a holiday weekend when there is less coverage. For me, Thanksgiving provided many challenges. Early in my career, I had to come into the ceramic tile factory the day after Thanksgiving to supervise a crew trying to clear a jam in the kiln. Many years later, a water main in St. Helens Oregon broke and shut down the ceiling tile plant. Once again, I was the one covering, and had to respond quickly and deal with a near disaster.
Read MoreDuring Armstrong’s Lean transformation, we took many benchmarking trips to learn from companies that were further along in their Lean journeys. One memorable trip included visits to Boeing and Nucor Steel in South Carolina on an extremely hot day in July.
Read MoreFor the early part of their Lean journey, I was the interim Lean Leader for Armstrong World Industries’ Hilliard Ohio plant. I was returning to the corporate office in Lancaster Pennsylvania from my assignment as Operations Manager at the St. Helens Oregon plant. I spent two out of every three weeks at the plant, until my family moved from the West coast to join me.
Read MoreWhen I opened my business, I tried many ways to attract clients. After spending money on advertising that didn’t lead to business, I focused on delivering a great customer experience and then let my business grow organically through word of mouth and referrals. This is a slower path, but it fits my principles of how I want to conduct my business.
Read MoreAdmit it. After reading the title of this story, some of you are hearing the famous Lionel Richie song in your head. This story isn’t about that, but rather it concerns a challenging Kaizen event I recently facilitated for CITY Furniture. The business problem we were trying to solve was a series of computer programs that ran after all showrooms closed each evening. There was a period of time where no revenue could be generated through their e-commerce website, until all programs completed their reconciliations. Our goal was to cut the time by 75%, so that we could free up overnight revenue generation.
Read MoreArmstrong World Industries kicked off their Lean journey in 2010. They put a lot of effort into building a culture of Kaizen across their 22 manufacturing locations worldwide. I was sent to many facilities to assist.
Read MoreOn May 15, 2018, I registered Process Improvement Partners LLC as an official business. Since then, I have had so many adventures, made lots of mistakes, and hopefully learned from many of them!
Read MoreI graduated from Virginia Tech and went to work as a corporate industrial engineer for Thomasville Furniture in North Carolina. Harriet was my first mentor. She was working on a project to improve the productivity of one of our bedroom furniture manufacturing facilities.
Read MoreI was facilitating a Kaizen event for a large furniture retailer in Florida. They offer many services that set them apart from their competitors. They have a nice sales and service advantage and impressive customer loyalty. The Kaizen topic we were working on was the use of replacement parts in their process. Our goal was to reduce the amount of replacement parts needed.
Read MoreI was asked to facilitate a 5S Kaizen at an electronics manufacturer. The specific area of interest was in a testing lab that was used to analyze components that failed in the field. There were an amazing number of parts and supplies in the lab. On first glance, the lab owner felt he needed everything in the lab to accurately perform testing. We must have removed 80% of everything in the space to improve the safety and productivity of the area.
Read MoreWe hear so much about lead generation, Search Engine Optimization, and other marketing methods. I don’t know much about marketing, but I do know strong relationships can lead to business partnerships.
Many years ago, I was Business Team Manager for one of Armstrong World Industries’ flooring business units. I had a co-worker named Jonah, who was the Business Team Manager for another business unit at the same site. He helped me in my early days on the job. He was promoted soon after I got there. Eventually he left the company to go on to bigger and better things.
Read MoreA good friend of mine asked me to speak at his Virtual Lean Summit. I was scheduled to present on the Wheel of Sustainability on Thursday. When I looked at the agenda for the week, I found several presentations I wanted to attend. One stood out to me as a must – the Tuesday presentation by the President of a large furniture retailer in South Central Florida.
Read MoreDuring my time living on the west coast, I wanted to give back to the community. Many of the staff at the St. Helens, Oregon plant participated in some way or another with the United Way of Columbia County. I was intrigued. I had participated in many United Way Days of Caring during my time in Pennsylvania.
Read MoreI moved to Armstrong World Industries’ St. Helens Oregon ceiling tile plant and took as Production Manager for three years. During that time, I was able to test many Lean principles and improve my understanding of how to manage an organization to high performance.
Read MoreDuring my career at Armstrong World Industries, I honed my kaizen approach and spent more travel time at the Macon, Georgia plant than at any other location. That’s why I have so many stories to share about my time there.
Read MoreI have been fortunate to help strengthen the Kaizen culture of one of the largest furniture retailers in South Central Florida. They have been using Lean and Kaizen for more than 15 years and I have been facilitating many Kaizen events focused on improving operations performance and internal operations experience. A recent event focused directly on the end use customer.
Read MoreDuring my corporate career at Armstrong World Industries, I gained a reputation for many things: Lean zealot, “Conveyer Whisperer,” and someone who was willing to take on any challenge anywhere I was needed.
Read MoreI was assigned a project at the Armstrong St. Helens, Oregon plant. Our objective was to reduce production line changeovers from the historical average of 25 minutes to less than 15 minutes. This project had a capital budget, a corporate and plant team, and commitment to Kaizen (improvement) events. I was the most experienced in Lean and Kaizen on our team, so I facilitated many changeover reduction events and assisted with the tools to manage the overall project.
Read MoreI was a corporate industrial engineer at Armstrong World Industries. From time to time, I was given projects that impacted all facilities around the world. John, our manufacturing VP, was hired from an outside company. He was determined to have an accurate measure of performance, to compare facilities, and identify the highest value opportunities for improvement and investment.
Read MoreBefore I developed the Wheel of Sustainability, I had to find other methods to sustain the gains my teams worked so hard to develop during weeklong events. Here’s a story of the extreme lengths one team went to make sure no one could ever make a change to their improvements.
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