Case Problem - Leaning the Warehouse
“We are interested in lean training for our distribution centerworkers. Can you provide that for us, Professor Warren?” the (DC)manager inquired.
“Yes, we have training material on lean systems and would behappy to facilitate a series of workshops for you and youremployees. We usually start with a week of manager or supervisortraining and then move on to front?line employee workshops one daya week for about two months. As your workers gain experienceparticipating in improvement teams, we would return for day?longworkshops once a month for six months after that. The entireprocess takes about a year, after which time your facility wouldhave its own lean trainers certified to …”
“Actually,” interrupted the manager, “we don't need to educateour supervisors on lean—just our hourly workers, and I think thatcould be done in about two days, one day for each shift.”
“I see,” replied Professor Warren. “Perhaps you could tell memore about what your lean objectives are and why you're seekinglean training at this time.”
“Sure. We're implementing a new performance?based pay systemfrom corporate in which our industrial engineering staff hasdetermined how long workers should take to complete a task and whata day's output should be. We'll be recording task completion timesand daily throughput with scanners and comparing those with thestandards that have been developed. Those workers who beat thestandard receive bonus pay; those who do not risk losing theirposition. Our pilot project at the Atlanta DC didn't go very well.None of the workers met standard and they didn't seem to get howimportant this is. For example, they'd be running off looking fortools, or moving the same merchandise several times to get an aisleclear or to reach a pallet in back, or picking what they'djust put away, or stopping one task to work on anothermore urgent one. So we thought if we taught them lean principlesfor eliminating waste, it'd be easier to get the job done, andperformance against standard would improve.”
What might be some drawbacks in approaching leanimplementation in this way? What might be some advantages? Doeswarehouse work lend itself to lean?
