ABSTRACT
Empowerment on the plant floor is a new concept for most workers. Usually, the people who do the work have never been empowered to change how the work is done, and yet they are the changeovers experts. Empowerment is essential to employee motivation, engagement, and performance, which makes work more productive, satisfying, and enjoyable. Empowerment is also fundamental to the principles of the ReducedEffort Changeover (REC) system. Empowerment means managing people by results and leaving them free, within certain boundaries, to figure out how to best produce those results. During the one-week REC Event, participants are empowered to make any change to the machine or the process without having to ask permission from anyone. Without empowerment, nothing will change.
