ABSTRACT
Employees were laid off in 2002 at the Sensormatic plant in San Antonio, Puerto Rico, because of the weak economy. But even as that was happening, workers at the plant proposed a record number of ideas through the company’s suggestion program. Those suggestions led to $1.7 million in savings — and that does not include about another half million dollars in cost avoidance, according to Luis Arroyo, director of advanced manufacturing engineering. At Sensormatic, the stated objectives of the program are to develop in associates: an attitude of loyalty and voluntary desire to bring about improvement, an opportunity for individual expression, a feeling that they have a part in the contribution of making Sensormatic a successful business, a program that recognizes individual and team efforts, and a program that promotes the innovation and improvement of ideas generated by all Sensormatic associates, suppliers, visitors, family members.
