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Talent development is key to continuous improvement.Photo: iStockphoto.com/monkeybusinessimages
Employees are an invaluable resource, just like the equipment that they operate.
But, are those resources performing at their best?
For equipment, the answer is simple enough: If your equipment isn’t performing well, you either fix it or replace it. But for human resources, it’s not as straight forward. With the right approaches and corporate culture, employees can become more productive and profitable.
Shannan Vlieger, director of operational excellence for Milwaukee-based Douglas Dynamics Inc.,
Shannan Vlieger, director of operational excellence for Douglas Dynamics Inc., says that building a culture of continuous improvement is essential to getting the most out of your employees
says that one of the most important elements is to create a culture of continuous improvement, also sometimes referred to as “lean” practices. Vlieger, however, prefers the term “continuous improvement,” as it emphasizes the continual journey of improvement, and avoids potential negative connotations of downsizing.
Developing leaders
“It’s around talent development, specifically leadership development,” Vlieger said in an interview prior to a presentation she was set to give on that subject at the Work Truck Show in Indianapolis in March after this edition went to press. “We’re taking kind of a different angle here rather than diving right into continuous improvement tools or methods. We’re going to talk about the people aspect and specifically the need to develop leaders and helping paint the picture for what it means to lead in a continuous improvement environment or culture.”
Scheduled to co-present with Vlieger at the March 5 session, titled “Increase Productivity, Quality and Profits with Existing Employees,” were Jeff Messer, president of Messer Truck Equipment, and Ranae Stewart, associate director of statewide outreach and partnerships at Purdue University.
Implementing continuous improvement concepts can take some of the confusion and chaos out of the work environment, says Vlieger, whose company manufactures and upfits commercial vehicle attachments and equipment. Most businesses represented in the National Truck Equipment Association, which produces the Work Truck Show, are familiar with highly complex custom work, and having the right processes in place can help make that more efficient and effective.
“We’ve tried to take an approach where we say, ‘Yes, we have a large portion of our work that is custom, but we can still bring some processes together to help us in managing that complexity and customization in a more predictable way,’” Vlieger said.
Information management
It largely comes down to information flow and the management of information. Whether that takes the form of a process for employees to follow or an information technology solution, the end result is that communication is more streamlined and effective. At Douglas Dynamics, whose brands include Dejana Truck and Utility Equipment, there was a time where everything the company did felt like a one-off, and each project would start its own process. Now Douglas Dynamics has developed a consistent process for taking the feedback of the customer and using that to drive processes to ensure the best outcomes.
“Ultimately, externally we have customers,” Vlieger said. “But internally we have customers too. So we talk about the term value add and what our customers are willing to pay for. So the work that we do that they’re willing to pay for is what we want to do better and better. The waste that they aren’t willing to pay for we want to eliminate or reduce. So the time it takes us to go look for a part on the shop floor is non-value added.
“So we need to figure out how to reduce that waste. What does our customer want? What do they need? What value are they getting out of the work that we do?
“If we are on the shop floor, if we’re outfitting a truck and we know that our end product has to now go down to somebody installing hydraulics, what do they need from us and how do we know that we did our job successfully?”
Douglas Dynamics is very data rich, after extensive efforts in collecting customer feedback through surveys and other means. That feedback data is then used by their tech service department to drive decision-making and to prioritize efforts.
Customers inform culture
A change of corporate culture needs to be informed by the needs of the customer, but management and team leadership are essential in implementing those changes. Middle management, in particular, plays a crucial role, as the front-line of supervision.
“We really want to focus there because this is where we find the greatest need to build those middle managers and to help ensure that they’re providing, not only the right support, but that they’re doing it in the right way. We’re talking about how we’re really using our companies’ core values as the back bone to drive behaviors.”
The ability to visualize these ideas is also very important. Lean processes encourage the use of a metrics board, which shows where a company is currently with their efforts and where they need to be. Douglas Dynamics also utilize their own management system, with tools and methods for continuous improvement, one of which is value stream mapping or process mapping.
“Often times, what we need to do is just understand a process from start to finish and break it down,” Vlieger said. “We use Post-Its; we take it to the wall. We map those activities at a variety of different levels and then you can provide that analysis. We’re breaking up the process understanding the activities and then analyzing them to say, ‘This is value added, this is non-value added.’ That non-value added activity is what we spend time on with problem-solving tools to reduce them or eliminate them from the process. That in turn provides better quality, better service.”
Vlieger admits that probably 80 percent or more of her company’s work is non-value-added — the customer doesn’t care about invoice processing, for example, but it must be done. The key is to use processes to make those non-value-added items better, faster and smarter so they take up less time and effort.
Knowledge transfer
It is also important to build a culture of mentoring and knowledge transfer, so that your employees feed off of each other’s knowledge and experience. One way Douglas Dynamics has been implementing this is through the introduction of the lead role.
“You have your shop floor technician and in each of those key areas we’ve developed a lead role,” says Vlieger. “So they are there to help assist in the process but also provide some other guidance and coaching and demonstrate the behaviors that are expected in our environment and participate in problem solving. And it really provides a career path for people that say, ‘I like what I do, but I want to do more, I want to take on more, I want more responsibility.’ That lead role is one way that we’ve really seen a way to build development paths.”
The company has also enacted manager development programs, which cover topics such as how to have difficult conversations, or how to do performance reviews and other management/leadership tasks.
“For us, it’s customer driven,” Vlieger said. “It’s embracing continuous improvement. Holding yourself and others accountable. And celebrating success is a big one. We like to have fun at Douglas Dynamics. How are we encouraging others by celebrating those wins and communicating the successes that we have? Those are all expectations of our leaders at all levels, but we’ve been doing a lot more with developing the middle management and helping them understand their role to be the coach or the mentor on the shop floor.”
— Matt Jones
Matt Jones is a freelance writer based in Fredericton, N.B.