Engaged Employees =
Greater Success Engaging Your Employees Through Dedicated
Continuous Improvement Time
Jill Seidel & Rachael McKinley
Operations Managers
A-dec
Agenda
• Who is A-dec?
• Continuous Improvement (CI) Hour Journey
– We Had a Need
– Initial Pilot
– Full-scale Implementation
– Current State
• Recommendations
• Questions
Who is A-dec?
• Family-owned
• Founded in 1964
• Designs, manufactures, and markets dental chairs, stools, delivery systems, dental lights, and cabinetry
• Has a global network of customers and authorized dealers in more than 100 countries
• Is recognized among the leading dental equipment solution providers in the world
• Is used in 85% of dental schools in the USA and in over 80 countries world-wide
Oregon’s Top 3 Most
Admired Manufacturers
The A-dec Way
Concern for people
Provide for opportunity and assist in
self-development
Provide an atmosphere encouraging
self-satisfaction and pride
Encourage team effort
Maintain complete fairness, honesty
and integrity
Maintain open, consistent and
regular communication
Encourage public service
Encourage creativity
Commitment to productivity and
quality
Maintain consistency
Dedication to improvement
Keep things simple and basic
Build on a basis of “need”
Attention to detail
Conserve resources
Current State - 2011 • Focused on numbers
– Capacity Hours
– Support Hours
– Number of Opportunities for Improvement (OFIs)
• Non-value-added ideas
• Limited resources
• Ideas were not getting traction
• Employees becoming disengaged
We had a need…
We had a need…
• Attended AME October 2011
• Leadership attendance
• Learn about employee engagement
• An obvious shift from mastering Lean tools to methods of engaging your employees’ minds had occurred
Beginning of the CI Hour
• Selected the pilot areas and prepared 2012 budget
• Set expectations with departments
• The Supervisor and Unit Specialist (U/S) planned for the
hour each week
• The Supervisor, U/S and ME Tech helped support the area
• Ideas were captured on OFIs and logged in the database
• The ideas ranged from safety, quality, efficiency, 6S, etc.
• We looked at 2 main areas to determine success
OFIs Implemented
Assembly Area 2011 OFIs
Completed
(through period 9)
2012 OFIs
Completed
(through period 9)
% Change
2011 to 2012
Chair Assembly 79 169 214%
DS A-dec 300 87 215 247%
Pilot Engagement Survey Results
93.3%
6.7%
0.0%
10.0%
20.0%
30.0%
40.0%
50.0%
60.0%
70.0%
80.0%
90.0%
100.0%
Yes No
Did you have fun and feel engaged during this hour?
76.7%
23.3%
0.0%
10.0%
20.0%
30.0%
40.0%
50.0%
60.0%
70.0%
80.0%
90.0%
Yes No
Did you look forward to this 1 hour each week?
Pilot Engagement Survey Results
What was one thing you learned during this time spent on continuous improvement?
• “Little improvements help in a lot of ways.”
• “Working with other co-workers to help improve the different work areas.”
• “Working as a team.”
• “Changes made in one area spur on ideas for other areas.”
• “The first 3 months we made a lot of improvements, then ideas seemed to fizzle out.”
Pilot Engagement Survey Results
Further Design of CI Hour
What are we trying to achieve?
• We strive to create an environment where employees are engaged, have a voice, are learning & developing, and are proud of their improvement ideas.
• Leaders are getting to know their employees and their processes, developing coaching skills, are able to solve recurring problems with finality, and effectively communicating with team members
Further Design of CI Hour
• Change Management Process
– Environment
– Capabilities
– Systems
– Mindset
– Measures
Further Design of CI Hour
• Defining roles
• Training coaches
– VP, Directors, Managers,
Supervisors, U/S
– 2-hour interactive training
• Setting goals for leadership
– VP, Directors, Managers
attend a minimum of 2 CI
Hours per month
OFIs Implemented
What results did we see?
AREA 2012 CAPACITY
HRS
2013 CAPACITY
HRS
2012 OFI’s
PER PERSON
2013 OFI’s
PER PERSON
Electrical/Perf 553 2234 11.2 6.7
Lights 1426 2328 13 5.4
Valving/Kitting 1580 1784 5.5 2.2
Uph/Stools 2053 2305 8.4 9.6
Post-Implementation
Survey Results
What’s working?
• Empowerment
• Teamwork
• Idea Sharing (among teammates)
• People stepping up and leading/talking/contributing
• Having a focus for improvement
• Employee-generated ideas
• "Let's try" attitude
• Teams continue to tweak the structure
What mindset and culture changes are we seeing?
• "I'm encouraged to experiment"
• "We have the tools and knowledge to resolve problems"
• "Ideas are shared and collaboration is supported"
• "Safety and Quality is important"
• “Getting better at effectively making improvements across shifts"
• "I am excited about, and want to make, improvements"
Post-Implementation
Survey Results
Where are We Now?…
• Environment/Mindset – it’s how we work!
• Many areas practicing daily improvements
• Administrative areas on board
• More flexible structure
Today’s Metrics
AREA 2012
CAPACITY
HRS
2013
CAPACITY
HRS
2014
CAPACITY
HRS
2012
OFI’s
PER
PERSON
2013
OFI’s
PER
PERSON
2014
OFI’s
PER
PERSON
Electrical/
Perf
553 2234 1152 11.2 6.7 20
Lights 1426 2328 1607 13 5.4 7
Valving/
Kitting
1580 1784 1074 5.5 2.2 5
Uph/
Stools
2053 2305 1076 8.4 9.6 5
Full-scale Implementation
Year One
Full-scale Implementation
Year Two
Current State
Administrative Areas
Recommendations
• Create clear objective
• Define roles
• Develop guidelines
• Assure leadership visibility
• Take small steps
• Develop staff through the journey
• Be flexible
– Timing
– Shifts
• Make adjustments as necessary
• NO EXCEPTIONS!
Thank You!
Please complete the session survey at:
www.ame.org/survey
Session: TP/02
Engaged Employees = Greater Success
Jill Seidel & Rachael McKinley
A-dec
Top Related