Cell teams show results

12/01/1996

Cell teams show results

You may recall the United Negro College Fund advertisements from several years ago showing a picture of a young person with a chain and padlock around his head and concluding with the tag line "A mind is a terrible thing to waste." The objective of the advertisement was to get people to make a donation in the belief that there was a great deal of untapped potential in our youth. I am not sure why, but that advertisement made an impression on me and has shaped my expectations of the people with whom I work.

When I joined Eaton`s Semiconductor Equipment Operations ten years ago, senior managers frequently speculated that employee teams, rather than isolated, functionally organized groups, would improve the quality of our finished product, ion implantation equipment. Though not in manufacturing at the time, I thought it obvious that this structure would also allow team members to make contributions to operational performance for which there was no avenue in the traditional organization. Being able, permitted, and, in fact, encouraged to make meaningful contributions is fundamental to job satisfaction.

A few years ago, these early ideas started to become reality. Teams, made up of members with a single skill, formed around major modules of the ion implantation machine. The teams were responsible for the quality, cycle time, and schedule attainment for the entire module they owned. Finished modules were delivered to the teams` internal customer for integration and commissioning.

In less than three years, defects found by the teams` internal customers dropped by two thirds. Team members investigate every defect, implement corrective action, and keep a database to analyze systematic or other causal factors and improve their delivered quality continuously. Cycle time dropped to a quarter of pre-implementation length and continues to drop. Team members look for ways to sequence their work to minimize total calendar time. They actively contribute to organizing and staffing multiple shifts. Schedule attainment, though recently affected by the surge in the capital equipment market, improved by a factor of 30%. Team members know the ultimate customer for whom they build their modules and take seriously their responsibility for meeting that customer`s requirements.

At the outset, we expected improvements in assembly quality, but we had no way to estimate the improvement in advance of establishing the teams. We are most pleased with the results of conversion to cell manufacturing and team management in the area of product quality. Cell teams began receiving feedback on their quality from the group commissioning the integrated modules, starting immediately after team formation. A team member reviews the problem log, notes the team`s issues, researches the root cause of the problem, ensures that a corrective action plan is initiated, and has the information recorded in a database. The database is analyzed by the team for trends, systemic problems, or other issues through the use of time charts and paretos. The team determines which problems to work on, performs root cause analysis, and contacts the appropriate support group - e.g., manufacturing engineering or supplier quality engineering, or even their own training "spoke" team - to develop solutions.

The database is also used to develop team quality metrics. A few months after the teams formed and became familiar with their quality capability, they negotiated their team goals for quality (and other) metrics with their Cell Coach. Fifty-five percent of an individual team member`s annual performance evaluation is based on the team`s record on quality, safety, cycle time, and on-time.

A cell team member`s day is significantly different from a day spent working in a functional department. In today`s environment, a cell member works with a planning spoke, another member of the team, to determine priorities for the day. A cell member participates in spoke teams (safety, planning, quality, process, or training) and takes responsibility to ensure that the rest of his or her team is following the processes established by the spoke teams. Team members may also be assigned to new product launch teams to facilitate the introduction of new assembly and test operations into the cell. Presentations to the team are standard practice and generally use metrics to keep everyone informed of progress toward team goals.

All of this is in stark contrast to the days when an assembler was handed a job of work, had no input or control of the processes and policies affecting his ability to get the job done, was not aware of a new product introduction until the work to do looked different, and was not informed of key performance metrics.

The conversion to cell manufacturing was not without its challenges. Getting started, we had some skeptics, of course. Most of the doubters came from the ranks of future cell team members, who had seen many different initiatives tried in the past with varying degrees of staying power. Also, we knew from our benchmarking, symposium attendance, and reading that a great deal of training would be required to ensure success. Until issues developed within teams, it was not clear exactly what training would be needed. Finally, our significant sales growth, beginning in 1994, and the resulting need for increased production capacity presented us with the problem of increasing team size while maintaining the identification with and ownership of a major subsection of the equipment.

An operations team, led by the manufacturing engineering manager and made up of production coaches, manufacturing engineers, and some cell team members, was responsible for setting up the cell assembly and test processes and providing for tools and documentation. A design team, led by the manufacturing manager and including cell team members, production coaches, materials management, and human resources representation, planned for training and for the appropriate modification to performance and reward systems. Finally, each cell team had a support team with purchasing, supplier quality, planning, and stockroom people devoted to the cell team`s success and focusing on problems on a daily, or even an hourly, basis.

Team formation, and the operational results improvement for our customers and for us, has not been a one-sided transaction - the benefits of this change are flowing both ways. Previously, people were hired for a single technical skill and were essentially locked into the hiring functional group. Today, team members are provided training and are expected to acquire multiple skills. Most team members have the opportunity to acquire electrical and mechanical assembly and test skills.

To achieve their team goals, members must acquire and enhance general busi-ness - as well as technical - skills such as data analysis, problem-solving, planning, meeting management, interviewing, conflict management, communication, personal computing, etc. In the former working environment, there was no perceived need for these skills and, therefore, no resources were expended to provide them.

In addition, team members have the opportunity to specialize in a particular area of production management, e.g., safety, cleanliness, quality, production planning, training, and manufacturing process. Formerly the responsibility of a supervisor, these aspects of production management are taken over by the team, which receives guidance from a coach.

The added capability, responsibility, and recognition of team members lead to a level of job scope and enrichment simply not available in the traditional organization. Consequently, our team members` skills are highly marketable within and without Eaton. We don`t want our team members to leave, but if they do, they are better prepared for a wider range of opportunities than they would have been as recently as three years ago.

I am reminded of the story of the retiring auto worker who, upon receiving his gold watch, remarked that "the company had use of my hands for fifty years. Imagine where the company would be if they used my mind for fifty years, too." Workers have the potential - if you take the trouble to find it.

Mary Swedberg is plant manager at Eaton Corporation`s Semiconductor Equipment Division; ph 508/921-0750,fax 508/927-3652.