A few years ago, when Jorgensen Conveyors, a Mequon manufacturer of custom and OEM conveyors that employs 100, started their Lean journey, they had great success, cutting production times in half, dramatically reducing WIP and increasing inventory turns.

But “we didn’t continue making improvements,” said Chuck D’Amico, co-owner and director of operations for Jorgensen. “We had no real process for continuous improvement.” There were also concerns about the level of employee involvement in the Lean changes and the competitiveness of the OEM business.

So they began the work of creating a Lean Culture with the help of WMEP. “We decided we needed to change the culture of the organization,” said D’Amico, “so that continuous improvement would become a guiding principle.”

A Lean Culture is a business culture focused entirely on the customer, totally committed to continuous improvement and always seeking perfection. The culture encourages every employee to contribute improvement ideas and be problem solvers.

For Jorgensen employees to feel like they had a stake in the Lean Culture, management first established a Lean Incentive Plan – in this case, a custom Lean gain sharing plan based on profitability. “There’s a minimum level of profitability the company has to achieve, then we start to accumulate the gain share pool of money,” said D’Amico.

The plan’s purpose is to make employees more aware of how on-time delivery, scrap, rework and other measurables affect profitability – i.e., how their actions directly affect the company. This is done using large measurables boards to track progress and holding monthly meetings to explain the metrics and their impact. In addition, peer pressure has come into play, with employees more concerned that their peers follow procedures and give an honest effort. When monthly goals are reached, employees can earn bonuses 12 to 13% above normal wages.

“We’ve been very successful with it,” said D’Amico. “If we miss a month, people are very aware of that. They ask, ‘What happened?’ Then we show them the measurables.”

The next step was to create the teams that are the foundation of Lean Culture: a core team that supports continuous improvement, a steering team that drives implementation, and project teams that work on specific projects.
The steering team first tackled Jorgensen’s quote/order process. The paperwork for quotes and orders was stored in folders that moved from desk to desk. To understand exactly what was happening to the folders, they used Value-Added Flow Analysis, a process-focused tool that digs deep into a specific office function to document every step and every minute of time used in that process.

They found that the folders were “sitting in queue. There was not a long cycle time, but the queue time was very high,” said Maureen Brom, WMEP manufacturing specialist and portfolio manager for Jorgensen. An order might sit up to 90 hours at a single point. Total queue time ranged from 20 days to an extreme of 90 days. The worst case scenario was when folders got lost, because often the only copy of certain information was in the folders. Then the scramble was on to find the missing folders.
“We also found that the folder traveled a long way (1,425 feet),” said Greg Mursch, plant superintendent and QA manager for Jorgensen. “We were able to reduce the distance the folders traveled significantly with some pretty simple changes. It took a cross-functional team to really work through that. We had some huge improvements.” They are working now to fully automate the process, including using automated credit checking, scanning and saving documents electronically and using e-mail to route purchase orders.

The steering team also chose 5S/Visual Workplace, which creates clean, well-organized workspaces. With two areas already completed and a third in progress, the goal is to clean and organize the entire plant. “Once we’re organized, we can reduce travel time of product in the plant,” said Mursch. “5S needed to be done,” said Brom. “It was an amazing transformation.”

The work to create a Lean Culture at Jorgensen continues. “The process is moving along well,” said D’Amico, “but when you try to change the culture in an organization, it takes time.” So far, 53% of employees have been involved in one of the Lean Culture teams or in a team activity. “I think as more teams are chartered and more people get involved, they start to recognize the value of it.” They are also implementing a formal suggestion system that no longer relies on individual supervisors to pass suggestions along. “We will look at every one and get back to them,” said Mursch.

The results of Jorgensen’s Lean work include:

• $200,000 in increased sales
• $30,000 in cost savings
• 67% reduction in queue time for orders/quotes
• Reduction in process steps for orders/quotes, from 16 to 11 steps
• 20% reduction in distance traveled of order/quote folders, with work ongoing to fully automate the process.

For Jorgensen, Lean Culture is the way into the future. “We recognize the world is a lot more competitive,” said D’Amico. “We need to continually improve to remain competitive. Using Lean Culture, the gain-sharing plan and other projects, all these efforts drive our continuous improvement.”

“Their whole philosophy is it’s their people that make the business,” said Brom, “and in order for Jorgensen to be a better company and remain competitive, they want their employees to be a part of the decision-making that leads them to greater success.”