Page 38 - MetalForming March 2013

Self-Directed
Work Teams
Improve On-time Delivery and Quality
Building on its nearly 20-yr. lean-manufacturing journey,
a New England metalformer creates self-directed work teams to meet its ambitious objectives: 100-percent on-time delivery and 100-percent quality.
For Farmington-based Connecti- cut Spring & Stamping (CSS), a manufacturer of close-tolerance precision metal parts, a long-term com- mitment to lean manufacturing has naturally evolved into use of self-direct- ed work teams (SDWTs). With the help of a committed management team, a zealous companywide SDWT champi- on, dedicated team leaders/cheer- leaders and, most importantly, partic- ipation of everyone on the shop floor,
CSS is well on its way to meeting its ambitious goals, just two years after launching the SDWT initiative. What began as an experiment with one pilot work team has been expanded to 21 teams addressing shop-floor and office processes.
Lean Sets the Stage
CSS embarked on its lean-manu- facturing journey in 1994. Continually looking for ways to embrace a cultural
change that would help reduce waste and increase production, in 2006 the firm sequestered 34 key management and production personnel to brain- storm ways to implement lean manu- facturing. Since then, CSS has looked at a variety of different approaches (top- down and bottom-up) to help imple- ment a lean philosophy. Management readily admits that some ideas suc- ceeded and some did not.
In 2010, the company began to seek a new approach, and an increased level of commitment to help meet its goals: 100-percent on-time delivery of prod- uct to customers, with 100-percent quality, while also reducing internal waste and costs. Thus the use of self- directed work teams was launched. A SDWT is defined as a group of employ- ees who combine different skills and talents to work toward a common pur- pose or goal, essentially without man- agerial supervision.
That’s where it got personal for Gas- ton Pelletier, CSS’s vice president of continuous improvement, who took on the task of implementing the approach as part of the firm’s 2010- 2011 business plan. As step one, Pel- letier sought training in SDWTs, and looked for a local company he could benchmark. Speaking to associates at the Connecticut Business and Industry Association, he learned of Dur-A-Flex,
CSS’s pilot self-directed work team created this master-schedule job-tracker/work-flow board, charting all jobs scheduled for six months out. Using the board, workers can see how long a job will take, which machines it will run on, how much setup time is needed and which operators are responsible for the job. Scheduling personnel receive alerts when conflicts or issues arise. Before implementing the board, workers typically would make scheduling changes to 50 percent of the jobs; now they’re making only minor changes to about 10 percent of the jobs.
36 MetalForming/March 2013
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