The Lean Transformation at Viwinco, Part 3: Building Workforce Capabilities    

In this four-part series, LEI parses the lean improvements at Viwinco through a lens of the Lean Transformation Framework (LTF) questions.  

All of the LTF questions need to be addressed to ensure a meaningful transformation; if applied a la carte, success is unlikely. The full Viwinco case study  shows how the LTF components came together and resulted in dramatic changes. 

This third article examines how Viwinco (a high-volume manufacturer of custom windows and doors, with billions of possible product configurations, and the majority of goods delivered on a one-week lead time) addressed the third LTF question — What capabilities are required (to do the work to solve the problem)? To answer this, leadership redefined key roles, such as team leader, and developed individuals to meet expected behaviors for the roles. A lean-skilled workforce was taking shape at Viwinco, one that was ready to be guided by new performance management and planning capabilities. 

As Viwinco leadership engaged the workforce with new lean ways of working, it became apparent that the changes could not succeed if the capabilities of the individuals working with those changes did not change as well. 

“For me, one of the biggest learning pieces of this was that it’s not just a set of tools; it’s not just a kaizen event or 5S or problem solving,” says Mike Duncan, Viwinco President and CEO. “That’s a huge piece of it, but the part that I learned is that fundamentally it’s about building the capability of people. We’ve got to be able to build the organizational capability of [the workforce] while utilizing them. And that’s very messy because you’re trying to implement things when you have capabilities that aren’t there yet, and it’s hard. So you’re trying to build that capability, teach them the tools, and implement the tools at the same time. That’s challenging, but it is a huge piece and it continues to be a big piece — building that people capability.” 

Many team members had always looked to management to tell them what to do. They were now being asked for ideas and involvement in changing their work and how to respond when things go wrong. To help make this happen, a tiered-support process was established with clear roles and capabilities defined for team leaders, supervisors, and managers. Each major line process has a team leader, with about a 1-to-7 team leader to member ratio. Team leaders report to a supervisor, who is responsible for a line per shift. Supervisors report to a manager, who is responsible for an entire building and all lines in that building.  

Prior to lean, there were frontline employees called “team leads.” The qualification for that role was often the hardest worker who knew the most about the line, with little emphasis on leadership capabilities, says Zachary Kauffman, Director of Continuous Improvement. Some of those individuals did become lean team leaders based on the new job descriptions and their willingness to accept responsibility for those expectations.  

The new team leaders received some basic training, starting with observation training (Taiichi Ohno chalk circle) in which they stand in a spot, observe, and report what they’ve seen. “We created that process and tasked each of the supervisors and the team leaders to do that and do it once a week,” says Kauffman. “We gave them 10 minutes to observe a process. ‘What do you see in 10 minutes? What’s one thing we can improve?’ We use that as a way of driving the behavior that we’re looking for, but also [to understand] their capability and their desire to do it. That was almost like an interview process for the team leader to know if they have the drive and the capability to do what we’re expecting.”  

Manufacturing leadership (Kauffman; Andrew Buczewski, Director of Operations; Matt Falcone, Director of Quality and Engineering Systems; Adam Kuiper, Materials Operations Manager; and Matt Harmon, Director of Learning and Safety) created a leadership development program that consists of three six- to eight-week modules. The first class through the program consisted of existing supervisors; next will be new supervisors, and then high-potential team leaders. Kauffman says leadership has been pleased with the results from the first class. “That has really grown our supervisor capability.” 

The added emphasis on capability development and training has led to an increase in internal promotions across the company and fewer external hires, with the exception of some senior roles being filled from outside (CFO, COO, and CCO). “Historically, when I started here, there were very few internal promotions; everything was external,” says Buczewski. He points to Jeff Prince, who replaced him as the Glass Shop Value-Stream Manager, and Prince’s second-shift supervisor who was a team leader. “So we’re starting to see the pool of internal growth, which has been huge. And personally speaking, that’s a big focus of mine because I’m at a point in my career where it’s more about developing others than it is myself. And I enjoy it, too. When Jeff got promoted, I was probably happier than [he was] because I spent two years working with him on it.” 

To keep pace with the increased training demands, the CI group has grown — also with some internal promotions — from what used to be one CI leader. “We have lean thinking and lean leader capabilities as a core competency of our leadership team, so that’s really part of what I’m here for, to ensure that the entire organization is thinking that way and developing their capabilities,” says Kauffman, who before leading the CI group was Director of Operations. He is joined by two CI specialists, one of whom was the supervisor of line No. 1. They are joined by two CI leads, who are both bilingual and focus on team-leader role development, and an intern. 

Next Week 

Part 4: Companywide Performance Management and Planning 

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