<h1>What is empowerment</h1>
before and after change over times
achieved WITHIN 1 WEEK
Managers need and want their people to be engaged in their work. They are not asking them for “total commitment”, but they are expecting them to be engaged, or to give full attention to their job functions. Why are there more engaged managers than engaged operators or technicians? The answer is found in empowerment. Managers are typically empowered whereas operators, technicians aren’t.
If you want an engaged work force then the work force must be empowered to design how they do their work. Empowered employees meet and often exceed requirements and expectations. During the Reduced Effort Changeover Kaizen Event the operators who know the equipment better than anyone are empowered to design how they work. Following is a statement from an operator who participated in the empowering Reduced Effort Changeover Event:
“When Ron mentions the words "Renegade Mentality" I believe that he is personally referring to me !! I met Ron 4 years ago for my first ever "reduced effort" event. Being a production worker for years meant that I knew exactly what I was doing and no hot shot PHD from corporate was going to come in and tell me how to do my job. On the first day just a few hours into the class Ron asked me how I felt about the event so far,...my natural response to him was "BullS#!T". To make a long story short, 2 years after that event I found myself teaching WCM principals and leading classes using Ron’s Methods. I have seen machines go from 4 and 5 hour change overs down to as little as 20 minutes !! With his “REC” I am always super confident when leading operators into a Kaizen event because there are always amazing results. The Operators in any given plant in my opinion know the machines better than anyone,…they are after all the ones who have to deal with the equipment 40+ hours a week. Ron has developed an ingenious way of bringing them together and putting their sometimes unheard ideas into action. This combined with “best practices/procedures” developed by the operators themselves provide for immediate results that everyone will be happy with. It is continuous improvement at its best. The empowerment that operators feel after doing a “REC” Event puts them into a whole new world of opportunity. Like Ron said,…..”Why would anyone NOT want to make their job easier ??? “ Ron,….Thank you for the doors that you have opened for me. Watching the change in our employees and the growth that they have initiated has been one Hell of a journey,…and it just keeps getting better.”
Mitch Zirkle, Improvement Methodologies
Major bag manufacturing company
©2007 - 2011 Reduced Effort Inc. All rights reserved
Phone: 1-209-814-9198 Email: ron@reducedeffort.com
