Efficient Plant May 2019 - 8

column | implementations

Improve
Through
Culture
Change
Dr. Klaus M. Blache
Univ. of Tennessee Reliability
and Maintainability Center
(RMC)

Proud of your culture and what it's done for your
company? Making big strides toward improving
your culture? Share your success with others and
possibly earn recognition by participating in our
Culture Improvement Awards program. Deadline
is June 30. Learn more on p. 20 and at efficientplantmag.com/2019cultureawards.

Based in Knoxville, Klaus M. Blache is director of the
Reliability & Maintainability Center at the Univ. of
Tennessee, and a research professor in the College
of Engineering. Contact him at kblache@utk.edu.

8

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W

HEN I VISIT and/or
assess plants, the largest
roadblock to improvement
that I encounter continues to be a need
to improve culture. When enterprises
experience success in this area, it usually
comes from one of two paths:
 communicating a clear, understandable vision that is believable and
carries easily identified benefits
 dissatisfaction that people want
to remove or overcome, such as better
hours, better pay, or a plant closing.
It's difficult to change behaviors.
People frequently cite the NUMMI
(New United Motor Manufacturing
Inc.) turnaround, in which Toyota used
many of the same employees (previously from General Motors) in the same
plant with new processes. NUMMI was
an automobile manufacturing company in Fremont, CA, jointly owned by
General Motors (GM) and Toyota from
1984 to 2010. Although many good
plant-floor practices were enabled with
extensive coaching, NUMMI employees
were initially incentivized by the GM
plant closing in 1982.
When lean concepts were being
implemented in automobile plants,
North American employees were learning about how to properly use Andon
cords (cables strung over assembly lines
that could be pulled to request help or
stop the production line in support of
building quality in-station). At first,
the employees were worried that there
could be negative consequences if they
pulled the cords too often. Even though
practice sessions worked well, it took
some time to develop the required trust
and discipline for it to work. Most of
the questions involved people issues
versus the related technology. NUMMI

(Toyota) understood this, so hundreds
of coaches from Japan came to mentor
the many processes and effect cultural
change. Today, the Andon practice continues with many locations now using
push buttons.
More than 25 years later, most
companies still struggle with the final
step of "autonomous maintenance,"
which requires operator participation.
Yet, all best-practice plants proclaim
that a main reason for their success is
the production-operator-maintenance
relationship.
In "5 Ways Work Culture
Will Change" (fastcompany.
com/90297816/5-ways-work-culturewill-change-by-2030), it is stated that:
"Recent research by Hired found that
company culture is the second most
important factor candidates consider
when considering whether to work for a
company. At the same time, workplace
culture is being influenced by disparate
factors in significant ways. Demographic shifts, diversity and inclusion
initiatives, talent shortages, automation,
evolving technology, and an onslaught
of data are converging to create both
immediate and long-term changes."
There is already a shortage of skilled
trades/technicians who can perform
precision maintenance and engineers
trained in reliability and maintainability. The next shortage, also already
here, is the need for more data engineers and data scientists to manage all
of the information, connectivity, and
algorithms. To be competitive, future
cultural management will need to integrate these global trends and technical
needs and still support core skills such
as precision maintenance and reliability
and maintainability. EP

MAY 2019
http://www.efficientplantmag.com/2019cultureawards http://www.EFFICIENTPLANTMAG.COM
Efficient Plant May 2019

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