ABSTRACT
The world of work is the scene of much innovation and change. Some Weyerhaeuser Company employees, for example, are on temporary assignment to work at customer companies. At Tektronix’s Forest Grove plant, a group of technicians met with technicians from a supplier and jointly solved a nagging quality problem involving particulate matter contamination.
After redesigning their jobs, workers at a General Electric plant set production schedules 50% higher than those previously established by management.
A packaging team at the Procter and Gamble Company’s soap plant in Lima, Ohio redesigned, installed, and started up an innovation in packaging that was based on the insight of one team member who persisted with an untried idea in the packaging of liquid products. Initially, engineers at the plant were not interested in the idea.
After self-managing work teams were introduced into the policyholder services area at Shenandoah Life Insurance Company, the employee-to-supervisor ratio changed from 7 to 1 to about 37 to 1, service improved, and complaints and errors declined.
Digital Equipment’s factory in Enfield, Connecticut has no supervisors.
Ford’s car assembly plant in Hermosillo, Mexico has only one job classification for all assembly workers, who do all their own quality control and on-line maintenance. When necessary, the workers can stop the assembly line. During their first year, they established a lower defect rate than most Japanese automobile makers.
At Aetna Life’s new benefits claim office in Rocky Hill, Connecticut, each 12-person team handles all the various claims-handling functions that used to be done in several different departments. They also manage their own work flow, scheduling, overtime, hiring, and performance evaluations.
At a new General Foods plant in Iowa, the corporate business team manager personally visits the plant and briefs each new group of employees on the product, market, competition, and business plan.
For more than 15 years, the Gaines Pet Food plant in Topeka, Kansas has had an open storeroom, and employees have keys to the main doors of the plant.
Over a four-year period at Dana Corporation, the corporate staff was reduced from nearly 475 to less than 100, and the number of levels of management was reduced from about 14 to about 6. During this time, sales increased fourfold.
