ABSTRACT
With an enormous task at hand, structure and preparation were vital. We had four major manufacturing centers: the original plant in Billund, in the central part of Jutland, Denmark; the plant in Nyíregyháza, in the eastern part of Hungary, which had been run by a different manufacturer; a brand-new plant in Monterrey, Mexico; and a packaging plant in Kladno, Czech Republic, near Prague, which did assembly but no molding of parts. Because the project would include and integrate all of these locations, along with all the complexities of spanning their unique languages, cultures, and circumstances, it was pretty much a given from the initial concept stage that we would prepare and run a pilot project of our new organization to prove that it would work. Most of all, by showing the entire organization the power of a new approach to training and the results it could achieve, this would create a springboard effect that would launch the new structure to a strong and sustainable start.
