Helena Industries, manufacturer of agricultural chemicals, brought operational, QA and CI leaders to their Cordele GA production facility from similar operations facilities in California, Iowa and Arkansas. Caroline (Cordele CI) and her team had prepared the site brilliantly. Our training room was ready and set up for the simulation (part of the learning system early in the week), the weather was glorious, little could go wrong and didn’t.
Our basis for the week was our standard delivery program adapted to fit two groups with two teams in each. For the Monday and Tuesday the two teams learned in parallel then from Wednesday through Friday each Team had a daily ‘in class’ mentoring session to check, reflect and confirm next step(s). The participants experienced small stepped learn by doing that required gathering information at the focus operation, drafting content of the standards (three base types), testing and adjusting – 70-80% OK was fine first time around, aiming for 90-95% second time around. At that point, the standards were ready to be applied.
The four focus operations were:
- Cap sealer. (1 gallon jugs are capped and induction heat sealed.)
- Jug ink jet coder.
- Jug labeller.
- Slurry tank. (The slurry tank is part of the formulation process.)
Jason (Arkansas Plant Manager) observed very early on in the week … “We have standards, we couldn’t function without them. Trouble is, they are in people’s heads and tend to vary.” Later in the week he observed that he previously had no idea how much was ‘unsaid’ about inkjet printing.
Here are some more telling comments made during the week or during our closing.
- “I now appreciate much more what the formulators job involves.” (Ms Tameeka)
- “Work standards development is not an individual sport, it’s a team sport.” (Jason)
- “Now I see a jug cap in a very different way.” (Jerry)
- “I’ve learned more about capping jugs in the last few days than I ever thought possible.” (Andy)
With respect to Jason’s ‘team’ comment, the best team will involve the people doing the work and their leader.
We had an excellent learning opportunity in ‘listening with intent to understand, not reply’ when Ms Patricia (Supervisor) explained what she does when she sees a cap sealing problem. Her comment led to the drafting of an Input Work Standard for the cap itself.
Overall it was an excellent launch of work standard principles at Cordele made so by terrific site preparation, a solid ‘learn by doing’ program and by far the most important, a willingness to practice with intent.