Empowerment of hourly workers pays dividend

To reduce product changeover time a US manufacturer formed a changeover improvement team of hourly workers and empowered them to make all the decisions. The team flow-charted the product changeover process and saw that they needed more than a flow chart in order to achieve the best results. They videotaped the process, and from the video they decided how to streamline the process. The team’s efforts reduced the reduced average product changeover time from two hours to 45 minutes and the team m...

BPIR Categories

9.5.2 Manage team performance
9.3.4 Create & deploy teams
9.4.5 Develop functional/process competencies