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Home Town Kaizen Blitzing
Adventures of the "Tranformers," "Tank Tops," and the "Rubberneckers."

Sherrie Ford, Ph.D.
Principal, Change Partners, LLC


Target Volume 15, Number 4, Fourth Quarter 1999

In April 1999, two factories in Athens, GA agreed to participate in an AME Kaizen BlitzSM workshop: ABB Power T&D and Oliver Rubber. Both plants have a history of using this tool, but neither had exhausted the possibilities, or have yet to make ti fully a way of life. This was an opportunity to take it to a higher level, plus create a "home town" event. The workshop brought in team members from neighboring plants and organization in Georgia: Noramco (a Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical company), BellSouth, and Caradon Indalex – with a few from beyond Georgia borders, including Wide-Lite Corporation form Texas and Lexington Furniture Industries from North Carolina.
A Few Unplanned Lessons
Three kaizen teams formed quickly: two at ABB, naming themselves the "Transformers" and the "Tank Tops," and one at Oliver Rubber, naming themselves the "Rubberneckers." All three teams reported on the closing day that by far their greatest learning had to do as much with the teaming side of the blitzing as with the takt-timing side. Despite many weeks of advance planning, more than casual experience with kaizen blitz as a tool, and well-written mandates for quantum leaps in productivity, all three teams panicked when they had not gelled as well-oiled machines by the end of the education and first day's work.

Similar to the real world, when employees are thrown into a suddenly-accelerated environment with unclear roles, an excess of urgency, and no time to sort through everything, workshop participants at first were looking for someone to blame for poor organization and planning! "You mean we've paid good money to learn chaos!?" "you mean I've taken four days away from my job for this?"
Kaizen Blitz Goals Tackled and Achieved
Well, what did the Transformers, Tank Tops and Rubberneckers tackle? Did they achieve the goals of the mandate? Let's take them one at a time:

ABB Power T&D Tank Storage:
The Tank Tops
The problem: as in so many plants over 30 years old with generations of batch manufacturing behind them, this corner of the plant was a dark world of production leftovers ("Don't now where to put 'em"). Or, "They're ready too soon for final assembly – gotta put 'em somewhere." Tanks of all diameters – 13-, 15-, 17- and 20-inch and odd-ball singletons stacked randomly and anonymously loomed in their vast storage halls, to the team, like ghosts. Only one tank per pallet was labeled with the correct style number. No system existed for locating tanks in inventory, and housekeeping was unacceptable by the 5S standards. The plant is not yet fully synchronized to run with the demands of internal customers as the Tank Tops learned to call takt time, but getting these thanks in the right place would get them closer to that goal.

The Kaizen blitz mandate: Reduce floor space required; decrease WIP by 50 percent; cut leadtime by 50 percent; and improve housekeeping by 25%. Starting at the end of paint, and ending at tanking, the team scrutinized all tanks.

Their achievements: all tanks were sorted by diameter and designated to general areas, resulting in 500 slow-moving or obsolete tanks being removed altogether. Housekeeping improved by 30 percent. A clear path for 50 percent reduction in inventory and leadtime is in place, thanks to the team efforts; among their suggested additional improvements were an all-out culture change regarding batch manufacturing, moving more aggressively to pull systems.
ABB Power T&D Shell Form Mount:
The Transformers
The problem: a classic blitz event opportunity! This area is an assembly line where operators perform on task and "send it on down the line." The process was burdened by work flow constraints at the process beginning, with the operator literally walking miles to get units through various stages, distributing product and parts into the plant from time to time. During this walk time, the other operators waited, up to 25 percent of the total process time, for their particular operation to be called upon. The correct tools for operators were not present at the "point of need" and when they were present, they were not functioning properly at all times. Preventive maintenance did not exist in this area.

The kaizen blitz mandate: reduce WIP by 50 percent; shorten cycle time by 50 percent, increase throughput by 25 percent, improve housekeeping by 25 percent.

The blitz team started at a banding station addressing all product through that station. Their achievements included establishing a kitting approach, allowing a larger number of necessary parts and materials to travel with the unit so as to be ready when needed. The Transformers recommended that the area become cellular, and demonstrated in time trials the significant increase in throughput that would result. 5S was a key benefit in light of the many changes made to processes: the original score of 2.2 out of a possible 5 was improved to a 3.5 during the workshop, with more improvements projected. Additional detail about their achievements is shown in Figure 1.

ABB Power T&D Shell Form Mount:
The Transformers’ Achievements
Measurement Start of Kaizen Blitz Results of Kaizen Blitz % Improvement
Inventory WIP     16 %
Walking distance (feet) 8756 4400 50 %
Cycle time (minutes)     25 %
Productivity (units / person – hour) 4.1 5.1 25 %
5Ss (scale 1 to 5) 2.2 3.5 59 %
Figure 1.
Oliver Rubber Splicing the Tread Rework:
The Rubberneckers
Until breakthroughs occur upstream in the production of retreads (which would involve invention of radically different stacked molds pouring and curing technology), the tread rework process is critical. This area of the factory was ripe for blitzing for several reasons. It was the only area that had not been blitzed before, and it is responsible not only for the recovery of treads from its own factory but also for defective treads produced at a sister plant half a day's drive away.

The problem: this area had 2215 rolls of backlog of unrepaired, unspliced defective treads. The operators responsible for all splicing had to walk more than one mile each per day, with excessive bending, lifting, and reaching. Twenty-seven out of 38 steps in the process did not add value to the retread, and of the splicing done before the blitz, 11 percent had to be reworked.

The kaizen mandate: reduce the throughput cycle by 50 percent; improve productivity by 25 percent; reduce defects by 50 percent; reduce by 50 percent the number of feet material traveled, starting at the defect storage area and ending at finishing WIP.

Their achievements: Figure 2 reflects critical gains. What is not reflected is the major ergonomic improvement derived from relocating and raising the splicing table and reorienting the curing station relative to the table in a way that eliminated the need to twist the body in moving heavy materials from one to the other.

Oliver Rubber Splicing the Tread Re-Work:
The Rubberneckers’ Achievements
Measurement Start of Kaizen Blitz Results of Kaizen Blitz % Improvement
Space – sq. ft. 2532 1205 52 %
Inventory 2215 554 75 %
Walking distance (ft.) 14,056 5336 62 %
Throughput 45.4 days 11.3 days 75 %
Quality (measured as first-pass yield) 88.3 % 94.1 % 50 %
Productivity (splices / hour) 4.70 5.64 20 %
Figure 2.
Additional Improvement Suggestion
An interesting side story: in the process of analyzing all non-value-added steps, the question arose as to whether there were an alternative to using a particular adhesive in curing the new splice. The one used at the time had to be trimmed for each use, because they could purchase it only in specified lengths. Inquiry with R & D at a sister plant in Paris, TX led to the discovery that Tuff Rope, an Oliver Rubber product, had been suggested years ago as a viable option, with the advantage that one could cut the necessary length the first time, with no trimming and no scrap. However for unknown reasons, Tuff Rope had not been adopted. The cost savings from Tuff Rope usage was calculated to be significant, but because it could not be implemented within the workshop time frame, that gain in not shown in Figure 2.
When You Already Blitz, What's Left to Learn in an AME event?
Both plants had been practicing some form of Kaizen Blitz before this workshop. A muda (Japanese term for waste – non-value-added efforts such as repair / rejects and waiting) sheet, dance charts (like a spaghetti diagram, a line drawing that illustrates the steps in the current state of a process), and many other synonyms for AME blitzing methods were in place. To appreciate the true learnings in this event, take a look at the "before" and "after" information in Figure 3 and Figure 4.

ABB Power T & D
Already Doing Before AME Workshop
  • Had done 20 blitz events in the previous 12 months
  • Restructured the organization to make Kaizen Blitz a way of life
  • Achieved some great results
  • Began to meet with increasing resistance
Gained from the AME Workshop
  • Saw that more education is needed before an event so that skills are imparted, rather than "just doing it"
  • Saw how impressive the thinking can be with outside perspective from those who "do not know any better"
  • Involved union in the process, gained their support: "things like this get our people what they need, allow them to make decisions that help all of us."
  • A renewed sense of commitment, once the communication cleared up
  • A customer happened to visit during the AME event; it piqued his interest and he asked to sit in on some of the sessions; most impressed, he asked for more education and information!
Figure3.

Oliver Rubber Company
Already Doing Before AME Workshop
  • They "kaizen," but they didn't "blitz," they focused on incremental, steady improvements over time
  • The process was mainly driven by management, less with people empowerment
  • No involvement from outside perspectives
Gained from the AME Workshop
  • Blitz! Speed was a definite, exhilarating contrast
  • Results from this event far exceeded those of their typical kaizens
  • Significant business results could be foreseen if improvements are maintained
  • The AME education and skills introduced will last beyond this event
  • Beneficial to have outside eyes to see what is no longer obvious
Figure 4.

One outgrowth from this AME Kaizen BlitzSM workshop was a desire to start an ongoing forum to lead blitz teams on one another's shop floors. Can it be that we are witnessing the next evolutionary step in mastering world-class manufacturing methods – factory blitz teams within minutes' driving time of one another, attacking waste and complacency in products totally unrelated to one's own? Athens, GA thinks so!

© 1999 AME®
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