Page 16 - CMA PROfiles Fall 2017

A FAMILY SUCCESS STORY

A LEAN PLOT TWIST an 8,000-square-foot building with the to let people try new things and make
remaining excess machinery, product and mistakes. With LEAN, you have to go
materials and had an auction of items that ahead and make the change for the better
The Wilinskis had been interested in
LEAN manufacturing for 10 years, but we had been storing for years ‘in case we and not overthink it.”
they knew that tackling this change would needed it.’ You can begin implementing LEAN
mean a significant investment of time “We always thought our production practices very simply, they say. Wilco
and energy and require a huge shift in facilities were too small,” he says. “Once experimented with a very basic challenge:
company culture. we ‘LEANed’ everything out, we were able The bathroom. They put everyone on a
to combine three separate buildings into rotating schedule for cleaning duties, and
Then the recession came along, and
becoming a leaner, meaner operation one and get our manufacturing process eventually remodeled the bathroom. This
took on new urgency. all under one roof, taking Wilco from gave employees ownership and pride at a
80,000 square feet down to 65,000.” basic level.
What got the ball rolling, they say, was Eventually, employees worked on orga-
“going in front of the employees, present- All in all, the major transition took about nizing their work areas. Monthly full-shop
ing financials and upcoming workload, seven years, although LEAN continues to meetings were held, and everyone was
and telling employees, ‘We need to take be a focus as part of everyday protocol. asked to stand up and report on what
this course. We want to make sure we’re “We did a lot of the work ourselves, but LEAN projects they were working on and
around for the future.’” we did hire an outside consultant to help,” how this was helping with production.
Paul says. “It took awhile to get all of the
A core group of employees understood, “We’ve always been good at producing
the Wilinskis recall, and became engaged staff on board; they thought LEAN prac- a lot of product, and we would batch a
right away in keeping “their company” tices didn’t apply to them — that they just lot,” says Paul. “After we produced the
solvent. applied to big automated companies.” batched pieces, they went to a double
He had to learn to let his team
“Everyone pitched in,” says Paul. check area. What this meant was a
“We started on the 5S Lean process experiment with LEAN changes without lot of starting and stopping between
by donating excess hardware, lumber micromanaging, he recalls. departments. Now we have it down to a
and other materials that were sitting “I found that I was holding the business five-piece flow, doing one cabinet wall at
around and taking up space. We filled back by being uptight,” he says. “You have a time.”

14 PROFILES FALL 2017