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Companies using TWI to maximize Lean benefits

Industry                                                                               
Wiring Harness Mfg.

Company City
Alexander City               

Company State
Alabama                                             

Company Name                                                                     
AmTech LLC             

Project/Activity Year
Continuous Improvement - TWI / 2008-2009

Company Profile
AmTech manufactures wiring harnesses and controllers for buses and medical equipment. With about 250 employees now within a single and larger 130,000 square-foot facility, the company has embarked on a mission to become more productive and efficient.

Situation
Sustaining a continuous improvement initiative is arguably the most difficult undertaking in a Lean Enterprise. By resurrecting a training method developed to sustain the United States’ industrial might during World War II, Auburn Technical Assistance Center (ATAC) is showing companies that going back to the basics is exactly the catalyst needed to maintain continuous improvement and maximize their investment in Lean.
Manufacturers are finding that TWI provides a proven way to promote, create and sustain standardized work; define and develop consistent work procedures; and do so through a system that fosters rapid training; consistent results; immediate efficiency in job performance; improved employee morale; increased productivity; and reduced waste and rework.

Solution
Training Within Industry (TWI) is a three-component program that is the ideal process for training people within an industry who are responsible for training others in job skills, monitoring and effectively managing continuous improvement initiatives, and doing so with consistent and proven results. Job Instruction Training (JI) trains supervisors how to instruct employees so they can quickly remember to do a job correctly, safely, and conscientiously. Job Methods Training (JM) trains supervisors how to improve job methods in order to produce greater quantities of quality products in less time by making the best use of the manpower, machines, and the materials available to them. Job Relations Training (JR) trains supervisors how to lead people so that problems are minimized and gives them an analytical method to effectively resolve problems that do arise.

“TWI is an American-developed process that was extremely effective in keeping the United States’ industrial base strong and productive during World War II,” says ATAC’s Hank Czarnecki. “But with the U.S. emerging as a victor in both combat and industrial power, interest in TWI as a component in maintaining America’s industrial superiority soon faded. Post-war Japan quickly seized the potential of TWI and used it to launch and sustain its post World War II industrial prosperity. TWI essentially is the foundation of what we know today as Lean.”


Results
Czarnecki, along with ATAC Instructors David Hicks and Dave Devore currently are the only TWI certified instructors affiliated with the Alabama Technology Network. They are working with a number of companies who are former and current Lean clients to transfer TWI into those firms’ continuous improvement system.

One of those companies is AmTech LLC in Alexander City, Ala.

“We looked at TWI right after ATAC began telling us about it in late 2007,” said AmTech Lean Facilitator Cohen Vickers. “We became particularly interested in the Job Instruction and Job Relations components. Once we tried it, we quickly saw how TWI can help us in not only conducting our training more quickly and efficiently, but we also saw how it tremendously boosts quality, aids in standardizing our manufacturing process and the transfer of job skills knowledge, as well as increases employee morale.”

AmTech since has conducted a string of TWI sessions on different production areas involving every employee in a supervisory or leadership position and a number of newly hired employees.

“AmTech manufactures wiring harnesses for products ranging from busses, to medical devices and equipment, to aerospace,” said AmTech President Roger Hendrick. “We are considered to be a small company, but we have hundreds of job tasks that people have to be trained to do. Probably our top problem has been how do we train new people faster and better? TWI has proven to be the best format we have ever tried for this function.

“TWI methods have enabled us to train job skills that used to take multiple days to convey, into single-day increments,” Hendrick adds. “And because employees are learning through a standard and more thorough process, they are contributing faster and learning new jobs is less stressful. That feeling of contributing, coupled with a less stressful learning environment, has reduced turnover and improved employee morale.”
TWI teaches supervisors how to break down jobs into key steps, describe those steps concisely and consistently, and to develop the ability to continuously analyze those tasks for improvement. Supervisors are taught how to effectively instruct those tasks using both verbal and demonstration instruction methods and describing not only how to do the task, but also, the key reasons for, and the critical importance of, each step.

“TWI incorporates quality into the training and job conducting process,” said AmTech Quality Manager Wayne Kolmetz. “There sometimes has been friction between the Production and Quality groups in companies. TWI defines the process; shows what happens if the key steps are not followed correctly; and gives individual ownership. That old friction between areas is eliminated and different departments truly begin functioning as a team. Our challenge has always been to get information to our employees in a format that is easy to understand. TWI is more clear and easier to follow than any training method we have previously used.”

Moreover, TWI teaches employees in leadership roles how to more effectively maintain good relationships among employees by providing constructive feedback, giving credit where credit is due, informing employees in advance about pending changes that will affect their jobs, and in essence, foster a work environment conducive to success.

TWI is not as widely remembered in the Southeast, but nationally, manufacturers are finding that basic methodologies that worked so well more than 60 years ago are providing companies already immersed in the implementation of Lean and continuous improvement with a proven way to promote, create and sustain standardized work; define and develop consistent work procedures; and to do so through a system based on identifying and accurately reproducing the key steps in a job process to foster: Rapid training; consistent results; immediate efficiency in job performance; improved employee morale; increased productivity; and reduced waste and rework.

Testimonial
“Once we tried it, we quickly saw how TWI can help us in not only conducting our training more quickly and efficiently, but we also saw how it tremendously boosts quality, aids in standardizing our manufacturing process and the transfer of job skills knowledge, as well as increases employee morale.” -- Cohen Vickers, AmTech Lean Facilitator