What a great week for Northern Ontario Manufacturers.  Last week, Chad Metcalf, the President of Value Stream Solutions toured the north speaking to Local area manufacturers in Sudbury and North Bay.  The topic of Chad's Discussion was: Sustaining Momentum for Continuous Improvement and Future Change.  Please click on the link below to view the presentation in its entirety.

http://www.emccanada.org/membersonl/ontario/northbay/2010/emcnortherntour032111pdf

Chad talked to the groups about how we are seeing companies get stronger and start to hire back personnel.  Some of the problems organizations are feeling is that the orders are coming in to fast and the challenge is being able to fulfill sales demands.  The Strong Canadian dollar is going to make this a very strong year for mergers and acquisitions.

Because of the new found economy, many companies are finally putting effort into continuous improvement efforts within their organization.   Creativity and simplicity seem to be the path industry is taking over Capital and complexity.  With the resurgence of the economy come different market impacts such as the disaster in Japan, tension in the Middle East, understanding how these factors are going to affect your business is going to be crucial.

Chad talked to the group about how critical it is to create a culture that nourishes, cultivates, challenges and tests its workforce.  It is critically important to define the Values, Roles, Methods and Measures and how they shape the vision within the organization. An effective culture is one that allows for greater results and achievement than the sum of the individuals could attain.  An ineffective culture is one wrought with poor results, frustration, blame, politics and individual agendas. The abilities of company employees to change in order to meet new expectations or challenges will have a lot to do with the company…Culture!

 

On Motivation:

Implementing Change:

Companies have failed to engage employees in meaningful ways while spouting jargon about teamwork, empowerment and self-direction.  People generally want to belong to a successful group or team. They are more likely to do what it takes for the good of everyone.

Implementing Change:

Change takes effort and effort takes enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is a Leadership quality.

 

On Continuous Improvement:

Sustaining Continuous Improvement:

The processes we create must support and encourage these actions to happen continuously.

It must be safe to participate -no blame!

Mistakes must be viewed as both part of the process and as preventable.

Standard Work:

"Without standards, there is no process." -Unknown

We must have consistent methods of doing tasks both as individuals and as a team.

 

Problem Solving:

Very few people use the basic methods of problem solving let alone getting teams to use them. We are not getting to root cause! We allow teams to stop at machine malfunction, operator error or lack of training on non-conformance reports.

We are always reacting!

 

Summary:

Customers, industries and markets change whether we are ready for it or not.

We must learn and teach how to adapt.

Be ready to capitalize on opportunities

Be a Leader.

Involve people.

Focus on your customers.

Map your value streams.

Highlight problem areas.

Prioritize the improvement opportunities.

Implement change.

 

To see the whole presentation, please go to:

http://www.emccanada.org/membersonl/ontario/northbay/2010/emcnortherntour032111pdf