Tag Archives: Employee Engagement

If you suspect your employees are burned out, you’re probably onto something. The 2023-2024 Aflac WorkForces Report revealed almost 60% of U.S. workers across all industries are experiencing some level of burnout. That’s a significant jump from 2021 when the number was 52%. And, it’s coming close to the quicksand trap of burnout we saw during the height of the pandemic in 2020… which, as we all know, led to the Great Resignation. Many industries still haven’t recovered from that unprecedented mass exodus of workers.

Here are a few more fast facts about workplace fatigue from the Aflac report:

• 55% of employees who are burned out have low job satisfaction
• 47% don’t believe their employers care
• 55% have a negative view of their work-life balance
• 56% are likely to seek another job

Admittedly, those numbers seem pretty grim. It’s especially concerning when it comes to employee engagement and retention, which are problems bedeviling many industries right now, including manufacturing, mining, food and beverage and others.

The result of employee burnout and workplace fatigue looks like a laundry list of a manager’s worst day: lagging production, employees just phoning it in, growing malaise and discontent among workers. It can lead to errors, too – potentially serious ones. It all adds up to bad news for your bottom line.

That’s why it’s important for managers and higher ups to take a look at their company — the people on the shop floor, the workers in the mines, the longtime employees on the assembly line, even the white collars in the office, wherever your employees get the job done — through the lens of employee burnout.

What causes employee burnout and what can you do about it?

Causes of employee burnout

When tackling a challenge, it’s always best to look for the root cause. For employee burnout, we’re talking about:

• High-stress work environments with tight deadlines, do-or-die quotas and external and internal pressures.
• Increased workloads after people quit or are laid off, leaving “survivors” to pick up the slack.
• Repetitive or physically demanding tasks, which in industries like manufacturing are a necessary part of the job.
• Long hours or increased shifts to cover for being short staffed.
• Frequent instances of glitches or failures. This deflates the morale balloon quickly.

But, it’s not just those types of pressures that contribute to burnout. There’s also:

• Micromanagement, which sends a strong message higher ups don’t trust employees.
• Limited ability to make decisions on the job, which makes people feel their voice isn’t heard and their experience isn’t valued.
• Few opportunities for advancement and growth, leading people to feel stuck in what they view as a “dead-end” job.
• Job insecurity, which is especially prevalent after a layoff, with employees wondering if they’re next.

What executives can do about workplace burnout

There are many fixes for this challenging situation and some of them can be implemented fairly easily. Here are some ways we’ve found to help our clients deal with workplace burnout and reenergize their employees.

Investigate automation… This doesn’t mean investing millions in AI to transform your shop into a bot-dominated sci-fi thriller. It means taking a look at the kinds of repetitive tasks that might be better done by a machine. Automation reduces the need for manual labor, but it also reduces human error and increases consistency and efficiency. Payment and accounting, order processing, and inventory management are some areas to consider automating.

…and train employees for higher-skilled jobs. Yes, some tasks can be done faster and more efficiently by the bots. But the people who previously held those jobs are still valuable to your company. Upskilling those employees has more benefits than letting them go. Training is a magic bullet to increasing job satisfaction and employee retention. It gives people a clear view into a path forward, a sense that you value their contributions and are committed to their growth. Training also has another magic power – it increases overall, on-the-job efficiency.

Give workers more autonomy and voice. At USC Consulting Group, we are famous for encouraging top-level executives to get more familiar with the people who are on the front lines. We can all but guarantee that spending a few hours with the seasoned employees doing those jobs will give you a new perspective. They know how the job can and should get done, and are a wealth of information about ways to improve it. Listening to their ideas and better yet, implementing them, pays off in countless ways. Not only do you get a more efficient and productive line, your employees feel respected, listened to and valued. Now that’s a win-win.

Strive for operational excellence. Operational excellence is your organization running on all cylinders, eliminating bottlenecks, reducing waste and ramping up productivity. You have the right people in the right jobs and are using data and key metrics to “manage by the numbers.” How does this combat employee burnout? Just think about how great it feels at work when everything goes right. When you and your employees are clicking. When you don’t just meet but exceed expectations. That great feeling is called job satisfaction and it’s a powerful antidote for burnout.

Need help handling employee burnout? At USC Consulting Group, we’re here to help companies become more efficient, effective and profitable through process improvements — including implementing strategies to increase employee satisfaction and retention. Give us a call today to find out more.

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We’re celebrating a milestone here at USC Consulting Group — 55 years partnering with businesses around the globe empowering their performance. Our goal is to help our clients drive operating excellence, increase throughput, become more efficient and boost their bottom lines.

We got our start in 1968 when founders Tom Rice and Pat Price founded a fully-engaged operations management consulting firm that strives to impart positive, impactful change to our clients. Back then, we were Universal Scheduling Company, communicating with clients over mimeograph and analyzing their schedules. We’ve grown quite a bit since those early days. Over the years, we expanded into other industries like mining & metals, food & beverage, life sciences, transportation & logistics and more. Our reach opened up to serve companies all around the globe. In 2001, we changed our name to USC Consulting Group to better reflect the breadth of our services and a few years later, relocated to Tampa, where our corporate headquarters is today.

That’s a tremendous growth story that we’re incredibly proud of.

During our half-century-plus in this business, we’ve seen a lot of changes come down the pike. The ups and downs of the economy, employment markets that wax or wane, the ongoing challenges brought on by the pandemic, technology advancements in machinery and tools for businesses we serve, and a whole host of other factors that ebb and flow during the passage of time.

We’ve rolled with it all and learned some valuable lessons along the way.

What has 55 years of consulting taught us?

Here are some of the top things we’ve learned during our 55 years in this business.

Experience matters, but every challenge we tackle for our clients is different. Many consulting firms dole out cookie-cutter solutions. But we’ve learned there is no such thing if you want to find sustainable results. Even if two businesses are in the same industry, they are not the same. We understand companies have unique processes, procedures, management styles, cultures, machinery, employees — you name it. So we go into every project with fresh eyes, knowing that what worked for others may not work again. There are too many variables to apply cookie-cutter solutions. That’s why we start by listening rather than talking to learn each client’s challenges before implementing improvements.

Upper management walking the shop floor is vital. We can recommend operations changes all day long, but the meat of the action happens day-to-day on the front lines, no matter the industry you’re in. If you’re a manager or in the C-suite, it’s so important to get down into the nitty-gritty of how their work gets done. You’ll get a better understanding of your operations, spot trouble sooner and also spot diamonds in the rough for promotion. You’ll hear great ideas to improve operations from the people who are actually doing the job, and when those employees are engaged, it leads to ultimate business success. Read more about it in “How to Increase Employee Engagement and Training to Improve Retention.”

Getting people onboard at the outset is a key element of success. Over the years, we’ve learned not everyone in a company is excited about process or operations improvements. Consultants can be viewed with skeptical eyes. That’s why we encourage engagement with employees at all levels, getting people on board early so employees understand they’re part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Going beyond Lean Six Sigma… Lean, which has been around forever and has recently migrated from the manufacturing floor into other industries (they’re even talking about Lean HR methods) and Six Sigma, a newer technique, are two methodologies for improving processes. Two sides of the same coin, Lean looks at making processes more efficient and reducing lead times, while Six Sigma focuses on cutting down on defects. The combination of the two produces powerful results. They’ve joined to become one methodology in some circles: Lean Six Sigma, or LSS, which aims to cut defects and shorten lead times. Striking the perfect balance between the two is tricky. It requires training and certification in the techniques. At USCCG, Dr. Frank Esposto is our Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt and Senior Director of Quality. He is also a certified LSS instructor. Read more about it in our eBook, Lean Six Sigma: Do You Really Know These Methodologies?

…but we don’t just set it and forget it. Dr. Esposto says: “When we employ the Lean Six Sigma methodology to help our clients’ operations, we don’t simply do it for them. We train clients in these techniques so they can employ them long after we leave.” That goes for any process changes we help our clients make. It’s not about giving them a fish. It’s about teaching them to fish. That’s how lasting change happens and it’s a key differentiator between us and other consultants out there.

We could go on forever about lessons learned in a half-century plus. But the bottom line is, putting our customers’ needs squarely in the forefront of every engagement, understanding the marketplace and challenges the business faces, and focusing on people and processes will help your business reach a state of operational excellence.

Contact us today and let USC put our experience to work for you.

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What’s keeping manufacturing CEOs up at night? From supply chain disruptions to a disengaged workforce and growing skills gap, there are challenges aplenty plaguing leadership teams. Here are the top five manufacturing issues along with solutions from USC Consulting Group that will help them sleep a little easier.

Problem: Retiring workforce

My best shift supervisor is retiring next month! He knows everything there is to know about the line. How can I possibly replace him?

“The median age of manufacturing workers is 48 and continues to grow older.”

Solution: Capture that knowledge!

Before your seasoned vets retire, create mentorship programs, have roundtable discussions and update manuals with their hard-earned know-how.

Problem: Skills gap + Jobs gap

I have positions to fill but I’m not finding any qualified candidates! How am I supposed to get the job done?

“Manufacturers will have 2 million jobs to fill by 2030. But there’s a skills gap out there. A sea of open jobs and few skilled people to fill them is a one-two punch.”

Solution: Build training into your budget

Skill them up yourself! Invest in training for new hires and partner with a local trade school or community college to target new grads.

Problem: Disengaged employees

Are my employees happy? It’s like they’re just going through the motions. Are they going to quit?

“Only 36% of U.S. employees are engaged at work and 74% are actively looking for a new job at any given time.”

Solution: Walk the shop floor

Talk to the team, ask how things are going and how you can help. If they’re short-handed, roll up your sleeves! Also, promote from within and invest in career development! It’s a proven way to build morale and engagement.

Problem: Supply chain disruptions

My line was down AGAIN because our overseas supply was stuck at a port. Again! We have high customer demand but can’t meet it because we can’t get the supplies we need!

“A 400% increase in shipping costs from China and a 45% increase in ocean freight wait times is expected to continue for 6 to 12 months, if not longer.”

Solution: Reshoring      

It has long been suggested as idealistic and beneficial for the country, yet unrealistic. That is, until now. It’s time. Reshoring is a way for U.S. manufacturers to invest in the country and claim valuable subsidies, while also shielding themselves from any potential global supply chain issues.

Problem: Inventory management

All of my departments have a different view on inventory management! Some want excess inventory. Others want it just in time. Do we have enough? Too much?

Solution: Sales, Inventory & Operations Planning (SIOP)

SIOP expands on S&OP by adding a crucial component: Inventory. It helps you wrangle your inventory management and achieve the optimal supply balance.

Want to learn more? Read What’s Keeping You Up at Night? The Main Concerns of Top Executives.

These aren’t the only challenges keeping CEOs up at night. At USC Consulting Group, we have more than 50 years of experience helping manufacturers find opportunities for greater efficiency and productivity. Call us today to talk about how we can help you get a good night’s sleep.

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Slowly but surely, consumers are returning to the marketplace in full force after a number of tumultuous years. According to Industry Week, consumer spending is up 20% from this time last year. While that number is great for a manufacturer’s balance sheet, there are still challenges in the industry that are keeping CEOs up at night. Here is a look at a number of concerns of top executives — and ways you can tackle them head-on to get a good night’s sleep.

Problem: Retiring workforce

Ah, retirement. The day valued, longtime employees get their gold watches and leave the plant for the last time. It’s great for the employee, not so much for their CEO. That’s because as retirees head out to enjoy their golden years, they’re taking all of the institutional knowledge they’ve learned over many years on the job with them. The median worker age as of 2018 was 44.1 years old — over two years older than workers in other industries. And that was in 2018, the most recent stat. Those folks are 48 now. But you don’t need stats to tell you that. A walk around your shop floor (or a talk with HR) will give you the lowdown on how many of your employees are nearing retirement.

Solution: Capture that knowledge

It pays to be proactive in most situations and this is one of them. Capture that institutional knowledge before your seasoned vets walk out the door. Create mentorships between older and younger workers. Film a roundtable discussion featuring your best older workers talking about the ins and outs they’ve learned over the years. Ask your seasoned vets to be part of updating your manuals. At USC Consulting Group, when we go into a manufacturing business to improve efficiencies, we understand that the people on your front lines are your greatest resource and our greatest ally in that effort.

Problem: Skills gap

The other side of the institutional knowledge coin is the lack of skilled workers to replace them. You’ve heard about the skills gap, certainly, and this is it. There is a dearth of qualified people out there. Or enough people. Manufacturers in the U.S. are expected to see 2 million unfilled jobs by 2030. It paints a grim picture for companies that aren’t planning or prepared for the future of their workforce.

Solution: Training

If you’re not finding skilled people, one solution is to create robust training programs that will get them the skills they need. It’s an investment, yes. But a worthy one.

Another tactic: Partner with a local trade school or community college to target upcoming grads.

Problem: Employee engagement (or lack thereof)

Are your employees happy? Do they feel valued and appreciated? If you don’t know, now’s the time to find out. To add to the problem of an aging workforce retiring and taking their skills with them, the new generation of warehouse and manufacturing workers are less and less inclined to begin and continue careers in the industry. The Great Resignation is a countrywide juggernaut that has prompted many of the younger workers to resign from and reject positions where they don’t feel adequately fulfilled or see a future career. The manufacturing industry is not immune.

The younger generation of workers needs validation and appreciation to stick around. Only 36% of U.S. employees are engaged at work and 74% are actively looking for a new job at any given time with their current employer.

Solution: Start walking the floor

Walking the floor is an oft-overlooked yet crucial way for managers and executives to engage with their team, foster relationships and directly affect employee retention in a positive way.

Getting out onto the shop floor shows employees that their employer cares about them and their career. For the employer, this strategy fosters retention while also affording an opportunity to discover any standout employees or ways to improve day-to-day operations. This directly combats an aging workforce by keeping new employees around long enough to become skilled themselves.

Another tactic: Invest in career pathing for your employees. It starts with promoting from within and giving people a roadmap for how to get there. It’s a powerful tool. In fact, 94% of employees said they would stay at a job that invested in their career development, according to a survey on LinkedIn.

Problem: Worldwide supply chain disruptions

While the COVID-19 pandemic has slowed down, the manufacturing problems it caused are still very prevalent in the industry today. Bottlenecks in every level of the supply chain and overcrowded shipping ports have become the norm over the past few years — with little signs of slowing.

According to Industry Week, a 400% increase in shipping costs from China and a 45% increase in ocean freight wait times — both increases relative to last year — is a trend that could continue for 6 to 12 months, if not longer.

Solution: Reshoring

Reshoring has long been suggested as idealistic and beneficial for the country, yet unrealistic. That is, until now.

The dramatic increase in outsourcing costs and interminable shipping wait times has resulted in many Fortune-500 companies — General Motors, Toyota and Samsung, to name a few — making considerable investments in the improvement, expansion and new developments of their manufacturing plants in the U.S.

Reshoring is a way for U.S. manufacturers to invest in the country and claim valuable subsidies, while also shielding themselves from any potential global supply chain issues.

Problem: Inventory management

Dialing in proper order quantities, reorder triggers and keeping an accurate and adequate lead time have long been hot buttons for manufacturers. The aforementioned bottlenecks and disruptions have not helped.

The issue compounds when all departments have a different viewpoint on the situation: operations, sales, finance and business executives can all have contrasting requirements and best practices when it comes to an inventory management philosophy. Any divergence in departmental expectations mixed with a lack of communication can spell disaster for any manufacturer.

Solution: SIOP

SIOP expands on S&OP — the business management process that involves sales forecast reports and planning for demand and supply — by adding a crucial component: Inventory.

SIOP is a powerful tool that helps your company get departments in sync, ensures that everyone is on the same page and realistic about the process, helps you manage and roll with changes, and measures performance.

“A key to SIOP is to emphasize inventory as a strategic tool to help offset variation in either demand or production issues,” explains David Shouldice, Senior Vice President and Managing Director at USC Consulting Group. “One lever of control in the SIOP process is to make inventory harder working as a strategic tool.”

SIOP helps you wrangle your inventory management, achieve the optimal balance between not enough and too much, and settle back into Lean manufacturing principles that can eliminate waste and help ramp up your efficiency.

These aren’t the only challenges keeping CEOs up at night. At USC Consulting Group, we have more than 50 years of experience helping manufacturers find opportunities for greater efficiency and productivity. Call us today to talk about how we can help you get a good night’s sleep.

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William is the newly promoted COO at Acme Widget Company. He recently conquered his operational issues by improving efficiency and increasing throughput with the help of USC Consulting Group.

William’s current foe: Manufacturing labor shortages and the growing skills gap.

William has noticed, as his seasoned Acme Widget employees retire or leave, they take their hard-earned institutional knowledge with them when they walk out the door. The turnover is driving up operating costs and finding replacement workers with the skills, knowledge and expertise to do the job, which is increasingly technical, is a growing challenge.

But it’s not just that. It’s finding workers, period.

Analysts predict 2.1 million manufacturing jobs will be unfilled by 2030, costing the U.S. nearly $1 trillion in GDP.

So how does William retain his skilled workforce while finding new hires? He called his friends at USC Consulting Group. Together, they came up with a plan: An advanced training course to retain employees and an expediting strategy to onboard new talent. The goal was to upskill current employees with the knowledge they need today and tomorrow, cross train them to do multiple jobs, and speed up the learning curve for new hires.

It was a win-win! Employees dove into the training and became more engaged. They saw Acme was investing in them and their futures, creating loyalty and appreciation on the shop floor and beyond. Plus, William’s new hires joined the team quickly and seamlessly.

With better employee engagement and training, William saw improved retention along with increased production and reduced operating costs. He created a work environment where his workers were skilled, felt valued, and took pride in getting the job done. The skills gap was closed and labor shortages were no more!

Are you experiencing manufacturing labor shortages and a growing skills gap on your shop floor? Give USC Consulting Group a call and they’ll put their expertise to work for you.

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When’s the last time you walked the shop floor and engaged with your people who get the job done on the line day after day? If you’re a manager, COO or CEO, you’re dealing with bottom lines, efficiencies, throughput, supply chain headaches, hiring woes and everything else on your plate. It can seem like there aren’t enough hours in your busy workday to visit with the folks on the shop floor. We’d ask you to rethink that. Engaging with your employees might not seem like a bottom-line priority, but it’s more important now than ever, especially as it pertains to employee retention.

Here are a few stats to illustrate why:

• More than 1 million manufacturing jobs are unfilled in the U.S., according to a report released in March 2022 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s a record high in manufacturing, and the trend doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. If you’ve been on the front lines of hiring to fill those open positions, or if you’re vexed that your productivity is suffering because of a short staff, you know how tough it is to get people in the door, and the consequences for your bottom line if you don’t.
• Just 36% of U.S. employees are engaged at work, and 74% are actively looking for new jobs, according to a Gallup survey.
• 94% of employees say they’d stay at a company longer if it invested in their career development, LinkedIn reports.
• The pandemic-wrought supply chain disruptions and inventory uncertainty continue to plague manufacturers.

What those varied numbers and stats add up to is, it’s really tough out there. Hiring is more difficult than ever, the skills gap is widening, employees still on the job are not engaged, and all of it is affecting your bottom line, productivity, throughput, efficiency… the whole nine yards.

One simple way to start tackling all of those problems is walking the floor, talking to employees and getting a sense of what’s happening on the line day to day. We guarantee you’ll find it illuminating.

For over 50 years, we at USC Consulting Group have leveraged the benefits of doing just that. Here are six reasons why you should too:

1. You’ll gain a better understanding of your operations

At USC, that’s why we work side by side with frontline workers when we engage with a company. There are no better sources of truth of the day-to-day operations than the men and women on your shop floor. Experience first-hand the ins-and-outs of what makes your operations hum and what is hindering it.

2. Employee engagement equals business success

We’ve seen this time and time again. Just one example: We recently worked with a manufacturer that was dealing with dwindling efficiency due to challenges on many different fronts. They were having employee hiring and retention problems, machinery issues and operations and communications breakdowns. Management had let slip decades-old initiatives that had given them shop floor controls and visibility. This was a key piece to the puzzle. We helped them create a Management Operations System that involved them getting on the front lines and engaging with those employees. The result was a boost in production improvement. Read more about it in our case study, “Construction Materials Supplier Builds Up Equipment and Employee Engagement Programs.”

3. Build a promotion pipeline from your front lines

As you get to know your employees better, you can spot talent that could benefit from increased training and development for internal promotions. This has cascading benefits. Remember that LinkedIn statistic? Ninety-four percent of employees would stay at a company longer if it invested in their career development. That’s not just for white-collar jobs. And your whole staff will see your commitment to developing and promoting your people on the line. Internal promotions increase employee retention companywide.

4. You can also spot trouble sooner

Just as you’ll notice who is doing a stellar job, you may well find some people who aren’t. The weak links in the operation. You can also spot breakdowns in efficiency and opportunities to improve what may be going wrong by simply walking around on a frequent basis.

5. You’ll get great ideas to help improve operations

Our clients are all different, with unique challenges. The one thing we see everywhere we go is, the people on the line, the ones who do the job every day, can have the most informed and effective ideas — ideas that may not have occurred to management — about how to improve productivity, efficiency or any other challenges that arise.

6. You’ll help boost morale

Workers feel more valued and appreciated when the “higher-ups” take the time to get to know them, listen to them and are concerned about any issues they may be experiencing.

The bottom line is, take the time to walk around your facilities from time to time. There’s no downside to engaging with your workers on the shop floor. You’ll develop relationships with your staff, gain a good handle on what’s going on day to day, and create engagement up and down the line. Read more about it in “How to Increase Employee Engagement and Training to Improve Retention.”

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If the Great Resignation has hit your company, leaving you short-staffed and scrambling to fill open positions, you’re not alone. An average of 4 million people per month have resigned from their jobs since April 2021, according to the Department of Labor Statistics, and the trend is showing no signs of slowing down. In November 2021, the number reached an all-time high: 6.3 million. It is unprecedented. Economists are calling it a disaster. It is creating headaches from the corner office to the shop floor and everywhere in between.

Why are people leaving their jobs in record numbers? You can point to the pandemic as the major cause. To put it mildly, it has been a challenging time for everyone, and many people have decided life is too short to stay in a job that isn’t fulfilling.

For businesses, it means a necessary shift in focus. Employee engagement and retention needs to take its place at the top of the priority list for HR, managers and shift supervisors. Employee engagement is job one. Why is it so important? Gallup reports that just 36% of U.S. employees are engaged at work, and 74% are actively looking for new jobs.

It’s not enough anymore to issue a paycheck. The work has to be fulfilling and meaningful and engaging in order to retain your best people. One powerful way to address that growing problem is by increasing employee training, learning and development.

“According to LinkedIn, 94% of employees say they’d stay at a company longer if it invested in their career development.”

Engagement through training

The statistics bear out the connection between training and development and employee engagement in study after study. Udemy: 80% of employees said learning and development opportunities would help them feel more engaged. LinkedIn: 94% of employees say they’d stay at a company longer if it invested in their career development. The list goes on.

It stands to reason. Companies that are invested in their employees get invested and engaged employees in return. It really is as simple as that.

The benefits of giving your employees training, learning and development opportunities radiate throughout the company.

• Happier, engaged employees aren’t looking for greener pastures.
• Well-trained people make your whole operation more efficient and effective.
• Engaged workers really care about the job they’re doing, and aren’t phoning it in.
• When employees feel valued, they give 100%.
• Giving an employee a career path within your company helps ensure they see a long-term future.
• When problems arise, engaged employees are motivated to help solve them.
• Engaged employees are not cogs in a machine. They are invested partners in profitability.

At USC, we’ve seen it work in practice, playing out on the shop floor. Many clients are dealing with issues resulting from the Great Resignation — lost productivity, dwindling throughput and low engagement on the part of employees. The fix for that is by focusing on your employees and keeping them on the job.

We recently helped one client get a dramatic uptick in employee engagement and retention as a result of increased training. But it didn’t start as a training project. It began as a productivity project that led to increased training. Oftentimes, many facets intertwine to create a snarl of challenges in the workplace, and this was no exception.

We’ve highlighted it all in our recent case study, “Construction Materials Supplier Builds Up their Equipment and Employee Engagement Programs“, but in a nutshell: The client was dealing with dwindling efficiency due to challenges on many different fronts, including maintenance and equipment breakdowns, hiring and retention difficulties, and operations and communication breakdowns.

As we dealt with maintenance and other machine issues, we came upon some old manuals that detailed how best to operate and maintain equipment on the shop floor. Nobody was using the dusty, old volumes anymore, but we thought they held important gems of knowledge that, perhaps, had been lost. That’s a common byproduct of veteran workers leaving or retiring — they take that hard-earned institutional knowledge with them when they walk out the door for the final time, leaving younger workers without skilled mentors who really had a firm handle on how the job should get done.

We took those manuals and updated them. The next step was formalizing a training process to add a new level of skill to the workforce.

Certifications were the key

We decided to take the extra step of issuing certifications to all of the employees who successfully underwent the training process. We found this one, small step was a crucial piece of the puzzle. Employees who worked hard and passed the training were given a tangible symbol of their achievement. Like a diploma, a marriage certificate, or a driver’s license, they were just pieces of paper. But the meaning infused into that paper certificate was all about pride, advancement, achievement and mastery.

We saw employees waving their certificates to others on the shop floor, boasting about what they had achieved. For trainers, it doesn’t get any better than that.

And the company saw a change in productivity as well, with highly trained people working the line on the shop floor. All of that training led to the machines functioning better, which in turn lessened the frustrating situation that led to them coming to USC in the first place — low productivity and dwindling throughput. With engaged employees, that problem was solved.

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There are a host of different philosophies that business owners adopt to effectively manage their organizations. One of the most successful and widely utilized in the manufacturing sector is just-in-time inventory. Although not exclusive to manufacturers, lean manufacturing — as it’s more commonly known — is designed to improve process efficiencies by minimizing waste and maximizing output, producing just enough volume to sell quickly.

However, as the supply chain challenges of the coronavirus crisis continue to play out, with certain household products like paper towels, baking ingredients, and cleaning supplies still difficult to find, some are questioning the wisdom of this management philosophy. During the height of the pandemic amid “panic buying,” shortages dragged on for weeks at a time all across the country. Since manufacturers kept their own supply levels low and couldn’t ramp up production due to social distancing measures, stockers could barely keep up with the pace of demand. Shoppers snatched up household staples just as soon as they could find them.

Steve Cahillane, CEO for the breakfast cereal giant Kellogg’s, told The Wall Street Journal the company is considering amending its just-in-time inventory approach.

“There is appetite for more safety stock going forward,” Cahillane explained. “That is something that everybody is talking about.”

Some experts have concluded that lean manufacturing principles don’t work well within an environment with demand uncertainty. Contrary to what the critics say, this strategy remains a relevant and effective production principle during these times. Here are five unwavering reasons as to why:

1. Lean manufacturing principles are more than “just-in-time”

Lean manufacturing as a concept has been around for a while now, born in the 1930s and adopted by the automotive titan Toyota. Ninety years in the making, the thrust of lean manufacturing remains the same, but due to some nuanced understandings of lean, some organizations seem to have misconstrued what the term actually means. As noted by Industry Week, lean manufacturing isn’t just about inventory, but rather maximizing customer value while minimizing waste. Citing the definition that Lean Enterprise Institute uses, the publication noted that lean manufacturing is all about changing “the focus of management from optimizing separate technologies, assets, and vertical departments to optimizing the flow of products and services through entire value streams.”

Wally Hopp of the University of Michigan Ross School of Business goes further. He told The Wall Street Journal that lean inventory originally urged adopters to have backup plans in place to guard against circumstances preventing businesses from producing as they do normally.

“In a lot of the lean literature, that’s just stripped out,” Hopp said.

2. Lean can enhance flexibility

Another way in which lean manufacturing principles have been misconstrued is from a standpoint of flexibility. When implemented properly, through strategies like lot size reduction, level scheduling, and employee cross training, lean manufacturing is designed to help companies improve their process efficiencies. Theodore Duclos, chief operating officer for Freudenberg Sealing Technologies, told IndustryWeek that these same principles can also be applied to mission-critical equipment so these resources designed to enhance output can do more than one thing. In other words, instead of equipment being devoted to one specific task, optimizing equipment to handle multiple tasks helps to pick up the slack as a result of supply chain disruptions. It’s likely that product shortages stemmed from one dimensional equipment, thereby preventing some businesses from improvising.

3. Lean increases engagement among employees

A fundamental component of improving output in any business is engagement, which many businesses and decision makers say their company is lacking. Worldwide, it’s estimated that over two-thirds of workforces are not engaged, according to polling done by Gallup. Additionally this lack of engagement winds up costing business owners roughly 18% of their annual salary.

The very meaning of lean from a standpoint of running a business enables workers to have more say in terms of decision-making as they become stakeholders, noted IndustryWeek contributor Eli Boufis, co-founder and executive principal for Driehaus Private Equity. An engaged employee culture helps staff change their perspective by viewing problems not as stumbling blocks but as opportunities for improvement.

4. Lean improves responses to behaviors of customers

Similar to the misunderstanding of what lean means, there is also a misconception of the root cause of the ongoing shortages. There’s reason to believe it was more the multiplier effect than anything else. Perhaps the best example was what occurred with toilet paper. When news organizations reported that store shelves were increasingly bare with this staple product, many consumers responded by purchasing more rolls than they would normally, fearful that they would run out come the time they needed it. This thinking process resulted in a chain reaction in which everyone was thinking the same thing. In short, perception drove the shortage, which ultimately became a reality.

In the book “Lean Thinking” by James Womack and Daniel Jones, the co-authors write that lean as a concept and approach serves as “a way to do more with less human effort, less equipment, less time and less space — while coming closer and closer to providing customers exactly what they want.”

In short, lean practices aren’t part of the problem, but part of the solution as this approach is designed to help producers adapt and respond to changing customer demands as they occur.

5. Lean is widely adopted by industry leaders

Lean manufacturing principles are not just some idea or concept that works for some organizations and not for others. In many ways, it’s a way of life and highly prioritized. According to a joint report issued by Kronos and IndustryWeek titled “The Future of Manufacturing: 2020 and Beyond,” when business owner respondents were asked about their priorities moving forward, “lean manufacturing systems” was the second-most common response, behind only quality management systems.

Some of the most successful companies in the world have adopted lean manufacturing practices, including:

• Caterpillar
• John Deere
• Walmart
• Kimberley-Clark Corporation
• Intel
• Ford
• Toyota
• Georgia-Pacific

COVID-19 and the adverse effects on the economy that resulted are real, but lean manufacturing can be a solution. USC Consulting Group can help you implement this strategy in a way that works best for your organization. Contact us today to learn more about how to get more out of your business with less.

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