The power of AME Lean Sensei at Powerblanket

by Lea Tonkin

What’s it going to take, to get to where you want to go from where you are now in your lean journey? Here’s another question: Do you really know where you stand, and do you have a clear vision of where you’re heading? Tackling these critical questions, and seeking to provide better value to customers, Salt Lake City-based Powerblanket is employing the Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME) Lean Sensei app as a key improvement strategy.

The Lean Sensei app – a free tool available to any organization that wants to improve the way it improves – provides a framework for benchmarking against best-in-class performance reflected in AME Excellence Award recipient companies. A systematic improvement process, it fosters:

• Evaluation of current performance
• Understanding of a company’s rank against the benchmark
• Development of future improvement plans
• Review and celebration of lean journey progress.

Getting Started
Powerblanket, which manufactures temperature control products ranging from drum heaters to bulk metal warmers, concrete blankets, propane tank heaters, spray foam cooling and gas cylinder heaters, began introducing lean concepts in its operations about five years ago. “We were scrambling for examples of lean progress, but didn’t have a lean consortium in our area,” said Ryan Mecham, COO. “We learned from literature and AME conferences. Two years ago, we applied for the AME Excellence Award, and then learned quite a bit from O.C. Tanner about their lean journey. Now, since its introduction, Lean Sensei became the vehicle for improvement on our lean journey. It really made a difference, when people could evaluate their lean progress, and see what excellence looks like, in safety, quality, profitability and other areas.”

Like catchball in hoshin kanri (policy deployment), shared self-assessment and improvement planning/implementation engages people throughout the organization. “Using the Lean Sensei app helps to drive a people-centric culture,” Mecham said. “People love coming to work when they have a clear understanding of what excellence is and how they can achieve it.”

Teaming Up for Improvement
For the past couple of years, as the Lean Sensei app was being piloted by AME, Powerblanket organized its teams around the lean sensei groups. Teams such as business operations (purchasing, delivery, etc.), management systems and human//organizational development, manufacturing operations, safety and environmental health, and product development, etc. are assigned to focus on particular Lean Sensei segments. They rate current performance, set improvement targets and track progress towards identified goals.

“Our hoshin periods range from 30 to 90 days,” Mecham said, noting that approximately a third of its business is custom manufacturing. “Teams hone in on areas such as safety and quality, for example, and then, in a catchball process, they develop a proposal on where to focus improvement projects and how to measure progress toward their goals.”

At the end of each hoshin period, every team has an opportunity during a company luncheon to present their accomplishments. “This is a cycle we use to continuously update and improve,” Mecham said. “One of the advantages of being a small company (50 to 70 employees) is that we have an opportunity for everyone to get together. We discuss what it’s going to take to get from where we are now to achieving our vision (using our Lean Sensei vision statements).”

Accountability and Focus on True North
The Lean Sensei emphasis on shared accountability for improvement continuously encourages team members to focus on identifying and eliminating all forms of waste, noted Chad Meeks, a product manager and mechanical engineer. “There is a direct connection to our mission statements – focusing on true north – to delight customers, have zero injuries and 100 percent value-added activities,” he said.

Meeks developed the Powerblanket METIS (Manufacturing Engineering Technology Information System) software that enables level loading for production. Since custom products account for a third of the company’s sales, this capability is crucial. “We can determine whether we can run a product that is six hours and another at three hours, on the same line, so we can run production with one-piece flow instead of being in a batch and queue mode,” Meeks said. METIS enables Powerblanket to flexibly meet varying customer demands without carrying excess inventory. “It alerts the person doing the scheduling about whether products are incompatible on a line,” Meeks said. The data enables line leads to determine (at the beginning of a shift and throughout the day) whether they need to float people from one line or station to another.

The catchball process fosters improvements in production, and in other functional areas, according to Meeks. “People have been empowered to make improvements, and kaizens have gone through the roof, creating value and efficiency,” he said. Meeks added that Lean Sensei self-assessment and the catchball process help product managers and other teams focus on key improvement targets/resolution.