Resolved Corporate Conflict &
Drove Organizational Excellence
Situation
A U.S. glassware manufacturer needed assistance implementing their vision of continuous improvement. The CEO wanted to create ownership at the operator level to improve quality and allow a union environment to participate in creating improvements. The COO preferred to build new glass capability machinery to address manufacturing problems, ship offshore to improve the supply chain, and outsource customer and financial services to India. The CEO needed to gain alignment with the COO. After seven weeks of consulting and implementation of a pilot plan, the COO advocated layoffs rather than deployment of employees to increase efficiency and wanted to eliminate consulting services prior to the end of the contract date.
Action Plan
- To persuade the COO to buy into the process without jeopardizing the contract, worked with him daily.
- Coached him to ask open-ended questions with the implementation team to allow him to see the benefit of letting operations implement their own solutions.
- Persuaded the COO to dress more appropriately when visiting the plant floor so his attire would not intimidate the operators.
- Demonstrated a different demeanor and communication style when working with operators and union representatives.
Results
The pilot team of 90% of union operators, two supervisors, and one manager reduced costs by $3.5 million through improved efficiencies and productivity that reduced headcount from 12 people per line to six and reduced overtime by 85%. As the COO was the champion of this pilot project, he learned how to interject his ideas effusively. He won the operators over during the weeklong super kaizen event by participating in the pilot and personally packaging glass products for the first time.
The CEO and the COO became the driving force for the senior leadership team to implement our methodologies. The participation of the senior management team created a competition to see which organization could create the most change through operational excellence and continuous improvement. The result was an ROI of greater than 20 to 1 and over $25 million in savings.