Our host Canplas Industries started the discussion by sharing their efforts to increase & recognize employee participation.  Their employee suggestion program is a part of their cost reduction program.  They use many different methods off idea collection including person-to-person, web-based, and email.  Every idea submitted gets points which can be accumulated and exchanged for Jump gift cards.  A cross-functional committee meets monthly to review ideas and the ideas are tracked over a one year period ($ saved) on an Excel sheet.  The criterion used is cost savings and they could also look at ease of implementation.

The group decided that the challenge is with sustaining programs especially after the "low hanging fruit" ideas have been implemented. 

Some ideas for doing this included:

• focus groups (have topics and get ideas on post-it notes)
• give the option to submit ideas anonymously
• have a target per employee per year for number of ideas - however, this can lead to poor quality ideas if they are simply trying to get enough ideas submitted
•  get suggestions from workshops - Kaizen events

The group agreed that workshops, generally, give a higher dollar return than suggestions.  They get more employee involvement and buy-in.

Other methods to garner ideas included:

• Continually talking to shop floor employees and getting them involved to get ideas
• Do corrective actions in the form of workshops with employees to get ideas
• Pick a topic per month on which to focus ideas

Many thanks go to the folks at Canplas Industries for hosting this session.