Bandag’s Chino Plant, like many manufacturing facilities, was experiencing difficulties related to the assembly line process. People on different shifts did not regularly talk to one another and rarely communicated problems to their supervisors. People were getting hurt in the plant at a rate of one per month, product defects were high, and customer complaints were plentiful. If Bandag was to maintain its status as the world leader in the truck tire retreading industry, something needed to change.

To address these concerns, Dennis Fox, the plant manager, took on the task of implementing employee involvement teams. The executive staff at Bandag, Inc. saw these teams as a way to improve communications and quality in all of their plants. Recognizing that the magnitude of change required for the successful implementation of the team process would require outside assistance, Dennis contacted The Ken Blanchard Companies in Escondido, CA. According to Dennis, “When I take a look at the benefits of training, I look at them in two ways.

• Training will help you change the current way of thinking.
• Training will help you make things happen that haven’t happened before.”

Dennis became acquainted with Blanchard during a three day Leadership Training for Supervisors seminar at Bandag’s corporate headquarters in Muscatine, IA. He knew that he wanted to incorporate elements of the Leadership Training for Supervisors program into the training for the 85 employees at his plant, but he also knew he needed something more. Leigh Strohn, Bandag’s sales consultant at Blanchard, recognized that Dennis did not need a program-Dennis needed assistance implementing facility wide change to achieve its corporate aim. Dev Ogle, a senior associate with Blanchard was brought in to facilitate this change process.

For the next two years, Dev worked with plant management to create and implement a strategy for developing the skills needed by plant personnel to become more effective in their employee involvement teams. Following planning, skills training was implemented in leadership, teamwork, communication, and self-leadership. For example, Laurie Hawkins, an author and founding associate with Blanchard, was brought in to teach empowerment skills of Situational Self Leadership to frontline employees. All training was customized to fit Bandag’s unique manufacturing culture.

One of the first things Bandag discovered was the need to look at (1) who their suppliers were and (2) who their customers were. In this analysis, it became clear that they were not talking to their suppliers enough. “We weren’t spending enough time with them,” recalled Dennis. “They didn’t really know our business.” In order to open up communications, a task team was formed with Bandag’s Long Beach plant, Chino’s main supplier of raw materials. Five employees from each plant- including lab technicians, supervisors, and operators-are now responsible for keeping the lines of communication open between the two plants. This process has reduced quality defects and improved operating efficiencies, including a change of chemical supplier that has saved over $150,000 annually. Prior to the move to teams, line operators did not consider one another “customers.” “We’d hear a lot of employees say ‘That’s not our problem, that’s so-and-so’s problem,’” Dennis said. Now at the conclusion of each shift, oncoming and departing teams meet at the work stations for 10 minutes to discuss results and review problems. “Now,” explains Dennis, “ individual teams are taking responsibility for problems that arise and they are taking action to resolve them. It has been a tremendous help in terms of improving quality from an overall results standpoint.”

These shift teams have made so much progress that most are at the point where a supervisor is not needed at their meetings. In fact, overall responsibility for results has shifted from a management function to the operator level. For example, Bandag used to have supervisors work 12 hour shifts to fill in for absent supervisors. They aren’t doing that anymore-the work teams pick up the slack. “We just had a two-day off-site meeting and didn’t have anybody in the plant managing during any of those 48 hours,” explains Dennis. “The teams at the plant pretty much go ahead and run the facility themselves.”

In three years, Bandag’s employee involvement teams have made significant gains.

• Reportable injuries have decreased steadily.
• Overall product defects have dropped from 12 percent to 7 percent.
• Dealer field complaints have decreased from 39 to less than 20.
• Product scrap has dropped more than 30 percent, generating a $330,000 savings over the past two years.
• Mechanical up-time has improved from 97.5 percent to 99 percent, yielding another $160,000 in savings.

Results

In all, Bandag’s Chino plant has saved more than half a million dollars in a two-year period, but Dennis believes that more than money has been gained. “Our people feel much better about what they are doing,” he notes. “Product quality is up and injuries are down. And the credit goes to our people working in teams, rather than management and supervisors from above.”

“I feel this supports a notion Ken Blanchard and his associates emphasize,” Dennis concludes, “Good management is what happens when you are not there.”