MRO Today - Grice makes it his business

Grice makes it his business

by Paul V. Arnold

Read the following three quotes from DaimlerChrysler’s Al Grice.

No. 1:“We aren’t going to spend $500,000 to save $100,000. There has to be a payoff. We’re looking for a return on investment.”

No. 2: “Tasks need to be taken care of to make things better, to make the job run smoother and the process run smoother.”

No. 3: “I’ve always said to people on the line that if anybody has a burger-flipping job that pays $25 an hour and has these kind of benefits, let me know, because I’ll go flip burgers with them.”

Now, tell me. What is Al Grice’s job title at the DCX engine plant in Kenosha, Wis. Is it . . .

A) An accountant.
B) An operations manager.
C) A plant foreman.
D) A machine operator.

Is that your final answer?

Well, if you guessed D (or read the cover story on the preceding pages), you knew the answer.

Al is an operator and United Auto Workers member who makes it his business to know the business of manufacturing automobile engines.

“All of us need to take a look at the things we do here and ask, ‘Does it make sense? If it was your business, would you do that? Would you spend that money? Would you make that particular decision?’” he says. “Iapproach my job that way every day. I have to.”

Grice has taken a personal interest ever since returning to the plant following a 61/2-year layoff.

“That’s what I learned from the layoff: Do everything you need to do to keep the jobs here,” he says.

Grice’s outlets for learning, questioning and fixing the business have been two DaimlerChrysler continuous improvement initiatives: Product Quality Improvement (PQI) and Operating Principles (OP).

Since returning to the plant in May 1994, he has served as a PQI team member, recorder, leader and facilitator. His full-time facilitation stint lasted from late 1997 to February 2002. From 1996 to 1997, he was a full-time Operations Principles facilitator.

His contributions have not gone unnoticed.

“Al is one of the people who makes this plant go,” says plant manager Bob Hollingsworth, who then cites his favorite Al Grice story.

“(In the early 1990s,) I wanted to reprocess the piston rod area, and Al was part of a group of three people who came up with a plan. To pull this off, we had PQI meetings every morning and some evenings for about nine months straight. During the Christmas shutdown, they tore the place apart and implemented. When we started up after New Year’s Day, we ran. We went from producing 622 piston units per shift to 1,015 per shift.”

Over the next five years, Grice and friends continued to tweak the process. Today, the area produces 2,150 piston rod units per shift.

Grice says the project shows what happens when hourly workers and managers jointly shape the future of the business.

“Managers need to listen to the people out on the floor; the answers are out there,” he says. “There is nothing that we, the American worker, cannot do. It comes down to that. Listen to the worker, and you will find a way.”

This article appeared in the June/July 2002 issue of MRO Today magazine. Copyright, 2002.