Whom do you involve to get that broad insight for the plan?
It was cross functional so it was basically department
managers, certain operators were involved in various pieces of the plan, people
that knew their work area and understood what truly happens on a
minute-by-minute basis as well as production, engineering, maintenance. Everybody
in the company was really involved at one point or another as we worked on the
plan.
We had small group meetings. There was basically a planning
team and various people were added to the group during the process. People
could basically offer their thoughts and their insights in their own work areas
or the areas that played the most importance to them.
For example, before our tooling shop, where we build most of
our production tools, was located in the Aurora facility. In the starting point
in the plan, our engineering team and, most importantly, our tooling designer
they had the initial ownership for their piece of the plan. What kind of space
are you going to need? How would it be best to configure your equipment? That
changed over time, but they were definitely involved with both the planning and
the tugging and pulling that goes as you’re trying to meet everyone’s needs in
coming up with how the new layout is really going to work.
Then there’s ownership in the plan, and they’re responsible or
have a large stake in the implementation phase in their area.
What role should the CEO play in the process?
I use the CEO’s role pretty much from an internal perspective
as a cheerleader. Making sure we’re focused on the right things, making sure we
understand what the objectives are, how we’re measuring those objectives.
Things will not always go exactly as expected. You have to be
a cheerleader to push through those minor adversities and go to the next step.
It means how you interact with the team. Not focusing on what
went wrong, but focusing on what has gone well. If there are places where we’re
running behind, OK how are we going to adapt to move to the next level?
You pick people up and say, ‘OK we got beat up a little bit
here; let’s keep pushing on.’
How to reach: Mantaline Corp. Inc., (800) 321-0948 or www.mantaline.com
