That first half-year was intensely frustrating for Juniper and Morris as they bounced backwards and forwards between operators and managers. From a Meggitt Production System (MPS) point-of-view they’d started in exactly the right place, the shopfloor. But at the time there was no MPS. “First we designed a layout with the shopfloor very much in mind. But when we took it to management they would not accept it. So then we went back to the operators—but now they felt disengaged by the managers’ veto,” recalls Juniper. And so it went on.

Breakthrough

Elsewhere, the rest of the migration project was pressing on regardless. Some big bits of kit – ovens and so forth – were being quite literally set in concrete. Another month and there might be little left to plan. As the year passed, the group operational excellence team arrived on site to prepare for the launch of Meggitt Production System. They suggested we revisit the layout. To get things moving the Site Leadership Council backed a single, intensive three-day event using the Lean tool called 3P (production preparation process). Juniper and Morris could now make a fresh start co-developing a solution with the shopfloor. And senior sponsorship would presumably make it much easier for any plan to win the support of managers. Would everyone now hop on board? Not yet.

The stone-walling of the previous six months did not evaporate automatically. “The first two days we still struggled with buy-in,” recalls Morris. “There was lots of ‘We’re not changing that!’ and ‘My manager says we are not looking at that’. Most operators just wanted to replicate their old layouts, even though products and processes have changed beyond recognition over the years.”

Hands-on

Both men fell back on their still-fresh MPS training in coaching skills. They patiently questioned, probed, explained and drew on their own experience in production engineering and continuous improvement to generate new ideas. The breakthrough finally came thanks to some blank sheets of paper. “One of us asked what the operators would do if they could start from scratch and do anything—and that was it,” says Morris. “The moment we got them drawing and laying things out on paper they were saying ‘Actually that doesn’t need to go there, let’s swap those, and move those over there’.”

The breakthough finally came when one of us asked what the operators would do if they could start from scratch

The speed of the shift—from resistance to engagement—taught the pair an important lesson they are keen to share, says Juniper. “Preparation is vital for 3P to succeed. As part of that preparation you need to think about who you are working with—their learning styles, if you like—and what techniques and exercises will help bring out their best. We’d been doing a lot of conceptual stuff in the classroom, talking theoretically about how best to deliver materials or equipment. With hindsight, operators are people whose daily life is very visual, physical, spatial, tactile. We should have got them hands-on from the start.”

Now, with some participants declaring “We’ve been doing this wrong for a decade!”, it was time to bring the managers back in. Morris: “On day one we’d just been reporting back. But from outside the room it was hard for them to understand the reasoning behind some of the proposals or the need for so much detailed planning. Day two, with managers more closely involved, worked better.” The remainder of the exercise would see directors and managers dipping in and out continuously.

Paper dolls

For those who needed it the event now moved out onto the shopfloor for a huge ‘paper doll’ exercise. “Some could visualise easily, so we would stay in the room to focus on breaking down their pre-conceptions and opening up their thinking. Others needed a much more gemba-like approach, walking the new and old locations to help them understand things more ‘visually’.”

For Juniper and Morris this was only their second 3P project. The first had been conducted alongside MPS experts from Meggitt at group level. This led them to underestimate the scale of the preparation that underpins a successful exercise, Morris thinks: “Understanding what people really want—getting their buy-in beforehand—that is decisive. Ask any busy manager and they will tend to answer in generalisations: ‘I want it to be right, I want my team to buy-in to it.’ Then show them the results and they say, ‘but you haven’t done this or that’.”

Coaching the boss

The solution is to guide people past their own platitudes and stock answers, towards a proper definition. And to do that you must be prepared to coach your ‘boss’. Working with 3P in the very early days of MPS implementation made this a stern test for Juniper and Morris. Today’s 3P practitioners shouldn’t find it quite so challenging. “If you’ve got a director or boss who is engaged with you—and we all should be now—then it will be perfectly possible to have that kind of conversation with them. It should come as no surprise,” says Juniper, who as a new team leader has recently taken on his first managerial responsibilities.

The 3P exercise achieved in three days what six months of patient diplomacy hadn’t even dented: a shopfloor layout that is home-grown, in place and working well. A real result for all concerned. Like all Lean outcomes, the layout that Morris and Juniper created is ‘provisional’, awaiting its own inevitable improvement. Changing operational needs will certainly require tweaks and probably major revisions. But today the most prestigious contracts typically demand rigorous proof of the bidder’s ability to expand and reconfigure their operations to suit. Meggitt Avionics now has a strong and growing body of trained 3P practitioners as well as a thriving MPS culture. Together these provide precisely that proof. ■