What I Learned From a Rolling Mill in Indiana

What I Learned Series Post 2

This is series of post will cover basic concepts and "ah ha" moments that I have had over the years in the various companies that I have consulted. Some of the content will be common places in your facility and some of it may be new but I share it all with the intent to provoke thought and demonstrate how many things are the same no matter what the end product of the facility.  If you would like to know more about any of the topics please feel free to contact me.

1. Situational leadership is imperative. People's needs change as they move through the change process. The way the leaders of the organization interact must be different as they enter the different phases. See this post for more information. At this site, the focus teams that were dedicated to the project focus areas were moving through the change process very well. They had passed the "valley of despair" and were moving up into the development phase. About that time the client project leader was promoted and an individual who had not been involved was put in place. At this point I did not understand this concept of situational leadership.This lack of understanding lead to unnecessary friction. Had I understood the needs of the new person were different than the focus teams who had been working for months then I could have avoided the pain and moved the project along faster.
2. Competing initiatives kill if not managed. If you do not manage competing initiatives effectively it can lead to a slow death of the projects. Take the time to create a master plan that looks at not only your project but also any other projects that might occur during the same time frame. This is best done with the leadership team with input from any corporate improvement groups. You need to consider all of the plant projects, their resource requirements, and how they fit with other projects. When you go through this exercise you find that some things must be done in a certain order and that some can be done in parallel. You will also identify where synergies between projects will lead to progress in both at the same time.
3. Operating context is important keep your cookie cutters in the kitchen.This site saw firsthand that they needed to take the time to look at each asset individually based on criticality. This allowed them to use information from previously done FMEA and maintenance plans but not without verifying that the equipment was used in the same way with similar environment. See this post for more information on the importance of understanding operating context.

This client was one of my first major project and for that reason also one of the most educational of my consulting career. This is but a sampling of the learnings but I hope they allow you more success in less time.