Team Leadership and Performance

STAUFEN MAGAZINE 2021 | No. 4 | Mabe | Leadership and Organizational Development, Lean Management

The best of both worlds

As a guest of the mexican manufacturer of home appliances (refrigerators, gas stoves, washing machines, dryers and air conditioners). Lean processes, Shop Floor Management and a focus on value creation using the process facilitator concept to optimize production, increase efficiency and reduce waste. Moreover, employees are more satisfied because they are supported in their dayto-day work by a process facilitator (team leader) and can thereby better concentrate on their work and value creation. South America’s leading kitchen appliance manufacturer are mabe experienced this in its large mexican plants.

Initial situation

For some time now, mabe has been facing a new situation: Competition is becoming tougher and customer demands for product quality and customization are increasing. The company‘s management quickly realized that lean processes are one way of greatly increasing productivity and flexibility. Since the initially isolated lean

projects did not achieve the expected long-term results, the company turned to the lean experts at Staufen Americas. The focus was on the two most important Latin American plants: the Saltillo factory, which produces washing machines and dryers, and the Celaya plant, which specializes in refrigerators.

“The general purpose of this initiative is to improve our production processes in such a way that it helps us reduce our transformation costs. We are looking to have capable processes and capable people.”

EDGARDO MORENO
General Manager Werk Celaya
Mabe S.A. de C.V

Approach and Solution

Staufen developed a holistic approach for the two plants optimizing the value chain and preparing the two factories for smart solutions. As a result, problems such as long lead times due to high inventories or unused capacities were quickly resolved.

An important success factor is the Staufen approach to jointly developing processes and employees in order to achieve sustainable changes. The transformation was mainly to be implemented by mabe‘s internal team supported by Staufen consultants. The aim was to implement change from the inside out, so that employees were heavily involved right from the start.

In order to anchor what was learned during the project, multipliers were exempt from their work for the project. They could then roll out the concept as internal consultants in other mabe plants. Hand in hand with Lean Transformation, all processes were prepared for digitalization.

Shop Floor Management + Process Facilitator Concept

The first step during the Lean Transformation was to implement various Process Facilitators who are responsible for 5-10 workers. The Process Facilitator is 100% free from operative tasks and focuses on the conservation and improvements in his area. At the same time, the Process Facilitator tracks the main KPIs in his sector hour by hour. Based on this, the necessary data can be detected to resolve any upcoming disturbances in the value chain. Staufen trained a total of approximately 200 employees to become Process Facilitators. For this, mabe primarily trained personnel who had been given the freedom to perform other tasks due to

the increased process efficiency. The Process Facilitator, being the key figure in this system, must pass through a six-step training program which provides the necessary tools, including problem solving, conflict resolution, and standardization, to prepare them for their future role. Lean coaches then accompanied the new Process Facilitators in parts of their daily tasks. The main supporting areas, maintenance, and logistics, were prepared in shorter sessions for their role in the Shop Floor Management (SFM) cascade. An SFM cascade with six layers was implemented in parallel to the trainings to provide the transparency necessary to work on problem-solving and process confirmation.

“We now provide support to the team so that when any problem arises in terms of safety or quality, they have the confidence to approach us. I have seen a great improvement since we started with the project. We used to work with a different system. Nowadays, people know about all the processes we have in the factory right from the start.”

LAURA HERNANDEZ
Process Facilitator, Werk Celaya,
Mabe S.A. de C.V.

Multipliers

Multipliers internally promote and coordinate Lean Transformation. They have the task of firmly anchoring the knowledge and experience gained from the project in the company. They coach and accompany the Process Facilitators in their new role and professionally support leaders with their lean competence in optimizing processes. The multipliers are also completely released from work to focus on the project. Afterwards, they are responsible for the roll-out in other company areas and plants.

Lean and Smart

Once the SFM and Process Facilitator concept have been implemented, the Lean Transformation of the processes and the implementation of the smart use cases can start. Along the whole process chain, 4 different 12-Week Kaizen Projects, such as Process Connections between different areas or Balancing of Assembly Lines, were carried out, to improve the performance of the value chain, which was the basis for the Smart use cases such as “Smart Workstations, Energy Management, and Quality Event Visualization”, just to name 3 of 12 use cases to be implemented. This process of first introducing Process Facilitators and SFM, followed by Lean and Smart interventions, is the key factor for success, sustainability, and Top Performance. By introducing Process Facilitators and Leaders of different areas to Lean Transformation, the ownership of each individual role is set, preserving the achieved results. The Process Facilitator also has to act as the guardian of the new developed processes.

The Staufen team optimized a variety of different value streams: from manufacturing of individual parts to the final assembly in the entire process chain. There were also targeted improvement projects along the entire value stream to increase capacity for the additional Process Facilitators and improve process efficiency.