 Team Tenneco
Thriving on competition, knowledge
and growth, a Tenneco Automotive
plant becomes the home of 'the best
team you've ever seen.'
by Paul V. Arnold
The first thing you notice when entering the Tenneco Automotive manufacturing facility in Paragould, Ark., are the awards.
Wooden plaques, glass statuettes and metal monuments fill the trophy cases lining the front lobby of the building where 64,000 Monroe shock absorbers and 5,000 Monroe struts are produced every day.
The second thing you notice, upon closer inspection, is the odd mix of honors.
Scanning the shelves, you find an award citing the plant as one of
nation's 10 best manufacturing facilities, and a trophy won by one of the company's softball teams. National awards of merit from Vice President Al Gore and from OSHA. And more softball trophies. Service awards from Chrysler, Ford and Nissan. And more softball trophies.
The arrangement is by design.
"The sports awards are just as important to us as the manufacturing awards," says plant manager Paul Hill. "All were won with teamwork. A good team is built on hard work, dedication, skill and trust. We love competition. We built this team by working hard and playing hard together. I have the best team you've ever seen. I promise you that."
Was Hill talking softball or shock absorbers? Yes, he was.
Focusing on the factory, the numbers back up Hill's claims of plant prowess.
-- In 1979, each employee produced an average of 35 shock absorbers per day. In 1998, the average exceeded 87.
-- First-pass quality yield on finished products is 99.6 percent.
-- The reject rate on shipped products is 113 parts per million.
-- Cost of quality is 5 percent.
-- Cost-reduction initiatives have saved more than $18 million.
-- Machine uptime exceeds 99 percent.
-- Inventory levels are 30 percent lower than in 1992.
-- The supplier base is reduced 10 percent each year.
-- Workers' compensation claims are 4 percent of 1979 levels.
No time to strut
How did the Paragould plant (also known as TA at Paragould) get so good and become a model plant for a model company? It took research, teamwork and the right attitude.
Hill traveled to Japan, Australia and across the United States in the 1980s, visiting innovative companies, including the competition.
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Kaizen teams tackle
tough problems
The Tenneco plant in Paragould had seen it all before, experiments with quality-improvement programs known by a variety of acronyms. So when kaizen was introduced in October 1995, many thought it just the flavor of the day. Three and a half years later, it has not only survived, but become ingrained in plant culture.
"Before kaizen, we never dedicated a lot of time to a project," says Bill McGinn, kaizen events coordinator. "An improvement project would be drawn out over six months. With kaizen, everything is condensed into one week and that kaizen event receives top priority."
But what is kaizen? It's defined as the philosophy of making continuous improvements and enhancements in business processes to cost-effectively and reliably achieve incremental increases in productivity, quality and profit margin. But it has more to do with action than philosophy.
An average of two times a month, McGinn targets a particular problem or inefficiency occurring in the plant. It might deal with a machine, the setup of an assembly line, inventory levels, oil usage. It could be anything.
McGinn then chooses a cross-functional team, normally seven to 10 people that are excused from their normal work activities. They spend the week diagnosing and solving the problem or inefficiency.
All plant employees are eligible for selection. A typical kaizen team may consist of McGinn, two assembly line workers, an engineer, a tool crib attendant, someone from purchasing, a safety manager and an outside party (a distributor salesman or manufacturer's representative). Through 1998, 92 kaizen events were held; 24 are slated for '99.
"Our first kaizen saved $64,000, so someone took their calculator and said, if one saved us $64,000, maybe 10 will save us $640,000 or 100 will save us $6.4 million," says McGinn. "People thought of kaizen as a money maker. In 1997, we realized the need to do more strategic events. They might not all save money, but they might make people's jobs easier, make maintenance easier, improve the flow of product. Instead of dollar goals, the goal is improvements."
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"There were a hell of a lot of opportunities for us," he says. "With this information and a game plan, that's when we banded together and started our team concept."
The momentum grew. The ideas flowed. And Hill cut the brake lines.
"We will never be satisfied or complacent," he says. "In the last couple of years, we've had a lot of companies come and benchmark our plant. But while they're benchmarking us, we're benchmarking them. We're visiting one of their plants, or visiting another company's plant. Don't ever get complacent to where you think you're the best at everything. If you do, somebody's going to pass you. Everybody can do something better than us."
That's why Hill and his crew benchmark, and do it in a very non-traditional manner.
While other companies visit with a host of managers, engineers and bean counters, any one of the 792 employees of TA at Paragould is eligible to be on a benchmarking team, from Hill all the way down to the greenest assembly line worker.
Also, groups are always cross-functional in makeup, so the information gleaned is relevant on a multitude of levels.
When studying a particular assembly line, one team member (an engineer) may gain insight on machine design. Another (an operator) may notice how members of the line work together. A third (also an operator) might recognize that the line is set up to cut down on steps. A fourth (a safety director) may notice the company's ergonomic floor mats and tools. A fifth (a tool crib attendant) may notice the point-of-use rack filled with work gloves and ear plugs. And so on.
Over the past four years, Hill's crews conducted nearly 60 benchmarking studies. When an assessment team comes home, they make a presentation to the quality council, a group consisting of more than a dozen departmental managers. The council then decides when and how to implement the discussed improvements. One idea can work to increase production, reduce scrap, cut costs and reduce the chance of injuries.
The teams within the team
As you've noticed, "team" is not just a buzz word for this plant. It's a way of life. If there is a problem, a team is assigned the task of solving it. If there isn't a team to handle such a problem, a team is created, then sent to tackle the problem.
Currently, 10 teams are in place. They include benchmarking; best methods; process improvement; environmental, health and safety; kaizen; emergency response; preventive maintenance audit; new product introduction system; people eliminating problems; and cost reduction.
Some teams, like benchmarking and kaizen, have constantly changing rosters. Others are more permanent. A whopping 85.7 percent of all production workers participate in an empowered work team.
Outside their teams, employees have a voice and a presence. Production employees make the calls on whether or not to shut down machinery. If a new production machine is ordered, the future operator or operators of that equipment witness the making of that machine and undergo training at the manufacturer's plant. That way, when the machine is installed, they know right away how to run it and take care of it.
"No one is better than anyone else," says Hill. "I started here as an hourly employee. Most of the other members of the quality council started as hourly workers."
Management is in tune with the hourly worker, and vice versa.
For more information, visit www.tenneco.com. Also, read
MRO Today's other stories on Tenneco Automotive:
Cost of quality at heart of Tenneco's triumph
Getting the most out of suppliers
A monumental maintenance overhaul
'Coach' Breckenridge guides his team
This article appeared in the April/May 1999 issue of MRO Today magazine. Copyright, 1999.
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