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- In Their Own Words
Enterprise Minnesota Magazine - September 2011
HELPING MANUFACTURERS GROW PROFITABLY
In Their Own Words
Enterprise Minnesota teams up with a fellow MEP center in Puerto Rico to teach St. Paul Brass and Aluminum Foundry’s Spanish-speaking employees the ins and outs of GreenLeanSM.
Lean enterprise expert Julio Lugo (standing) trains Spanish-speaking workers in GreenLeanSM using a handson manufacturing company simulation.
When St. Paul Brass and Aluminum Foundry was invited to receive GreenLeanSM training from Enterprise Minnesota, it had an unusual request. Close to 50 percent of the company’s workers speak Spanish as their first language, so company leaders asked if it would be possible to offer both English and Spanish versions of the training.
To make it happen, Enterprise Minnesota networked with Puerto Rico Manufacturing Extension (PRiMEX) to fly lean enterprise expert Julio Lugo to Minnesota for the Spanish training session. Smith Foundry in Minneapolis had also requested training be offered in Spanish, so the two foundries pooled their workers together for two training sessions over two days. Each company sent half of its Spanish-speaking workers to training one day and the other half the next day, allowing both companies to avoid lags in manufacturing production.
GreenLeanSM training alternates rounds of classroom learning with rounds of a hands-on simulation in which each participant is assigned to a different department of fictional circuit board manufacturer Buzz Electronics. Each round, participants are instructed to assemble and “ship” a certain amount of circuit boards. Between rounds, they learn how to apply techniques from the House of Lean like kanban systems, the 5S methodology and a lean plant layout to become more productive and efficient in the simulation.
By the third and final simulation, St. Paul Brass and Smith Foundry participants met their quota of 115 circuit boards, and found that the working environment was far less stressful than in the first simulation when only a handful of boards were shipped.
Enterprise Minnesota business growth advisor Tim Bjorgum, who led training in cooperation with Lugo, says training in Spanish allowed workers to gain a comprehensive understanding not only of lean practices themselves, but also of the thinking behind them.
“We needed somebody who could say, ‘This is what we mean when we’re talking about point of use storage or the 5S program.’ Obviously in Spanish, there are no five s’s because they are different words. We were lucky to get Julio because he understands the lean implementation, and was able to both translate it and add the green aspects to it,” Bjorgum says.
Plant Manager Dan Daubenspeck says having training in Spanish helped workers to feel at ease.
“A lot of the guys that typically keep to themselves and are quiet opened up with the Spanish-speaking teacher because they were more comfortable,” he says.
In the final simulation round, participants “see how they’re working as a team instead of in a silo. There is better communication and better quality, and they’re working slower, which they can’t believe,” Bjorgum says.
As a result, employees have gained a newfound understanding of the importance of GreenLeanSM efforts as they relate to the success of the company. Daubenspeck says that before the training, “everything got recycled because I told them to recycle it. Now, they understand why [we recycle].”
©2011, Enterprise Minnesota. All rights reserved.Reproduction encouraged after obtaining permission from EnterpriseMinnesota. Additional Magazines and reprints available for purchase.
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