"Core Team" drives change at Inland Tracy: in less than five years, a Core Team of company employees dramatically changed a troubled corrugated box facility into a highly profitable operation.

In 1996, a "Core Team" at the Inland Tracy California corrugated box facility recruited individuals to address the task of driving the future of the facility. Their initial task was development of a five-year plan. The plan was to initiate actions to improve the status, capability, character, and work environment of the facility. The team embarked on a learning process to determine:

* Why did traditional management practices not make the plant successful previously?

* What management styles and practices do successful industrial facilities use?

* What will motivate the people of Tracy to pursue success, set a higher standard, and achieve a winning performance?

* What are the key elements of a successful operation, and how does the facility implement these elements?

* How does the organization control and direct itself to achieve the plan and empower people to make their own decisions simultaneously?

* How will the group know they are moving toward success?

After extensive listening, questioning, and discussing the issue, the Core Team reached conclusions that resulted in a few beliefs they felt would establish some ground rules and drive the process:

* No single management style or process is effective [or every element of any process.

* Contrary to popular opinion, "empowerment" does not mean the right to do anything you want--it means you want to do the right thing.

* Before expecting people to do the proper thing, they must know what this is.

* People who have lived with failure for years can learn how to win and can build an appetite for winning. Winning is a learned experience and an acquired taste.

* Values are a basic foundation element of a successful operation. Trust is paramount. Without trust, communications do not exist. Without communications, progress does not occur.

* Quality is meeting customer requirements.

* Empowering the people who have the knowledge that is necessary to meet customer requirements is a key element of a successful operation.

* Everyone should share the rewards of Success.

Armed with a little knowledge, many questions, and a determination to make a difference, the Core Team set out to change Tracy. The results of their efforts to change the facility over that five-year period have far surpassed any expectations they had in the beginning. Tracy is now a successful plant, it was on the Inland Presidents Manufacturing Council for three of the five years based on improvement over performance in previous years. Productivity improved by more than 17% during the period. In 2000, Tracy was Inland's most profitable grid box plant in the United States.

How did this happen? The following is a brief description of the process developed by the Core Team and implemented by the entire Tracy team over the past five years.

FIRST THINGS FIRST

If "quality means meeting customer requirements" is a true statement, a good box that does not meet all the needs of a customer is not a quality box. An organization that believes this must develop, support, and improve core processes.

Core processes are critical to satisfying customer requirements, or they support processes critical to satisfying customer requirements. Core processes justify their own existence through customer chain linkage. Processes that do not link to the customer chain should not exist. Organizational design should start with customer requirements as a base and use core process definitions as a design mechanism for creating organizational structure.

The Core Team consisted of individuals who led the policy making process for the facility. It was responsible to the entire organization. The Core Team created and nurtured the culture through policy, direction, and example.

The success of the Core Team in building a solid foundation was paramount to the success of the process. A solid foundation was necessary to define mission, vision, strategies, and values. These primary foundation elements linked to corporate foundation elements, visual aids illustrated to all team members the strategic linkage that existed throughout the organization.

To measure progress in implementing primary strategies, we created a well-defined set of goals and objectives around known success factors for the facility. Since we believed thai winning was a learned experience, the goals and objectives had multiple levels of achievement. They included many ways to win and taught our learns how to win. Once we had taught them they could win and dispelled their fear of winning, their confidence and potential began to lead to greater challenges.

PROBLEM SOLVING PROCESS

After establishing the organization foundation, each process team reviewed the base foundation and developed a team foundation to represent their individual team orientation. They established goals and objectives with related milestones linked to the primary strategies listed in the foundation document.

Before the team could embark on problem solving activities and recommend changes to their current process, they first needed to document their day-to-day processes. The first step was to complete job descriptions and standardized operating procedures (SOP), including a job safety analysis for each piece of equipment. When the Core Team realized they understood their current process and the team had completed their foundation documents, they became a certified problem solving team.

After certification, the team would then brainstorm, achieve consensus, and prioritize the primary issues they would need to cover to fulfill their charter. The problem solving process had a primary question. "What about the job I currently do prevents me from achieving my objectives?" once the team resolved the issue, they requested authorization from the Core Team for implementation and approval of any spending requirements to complete the project. The Core Team was now responsible to oversee the implementation and maintain an accurate record of job descriptions and SOP as they continually changed.

ASSESSMENT

Concurrently with the development of our process, the Core Team continually assessed the effectiveness and capability of our existing teams related to the following primary team elements:

* Knowledge: The level of expertise that must exist in any successful organization at the level necessary to produce a product that will meet the customer's requirements or expectations

* Information: The customer's requirements and how that information reaches the people with the knowledge to act on it

* Power: The ability to make decisions at the necessary instant not only to meet the needs of the customer but also to facilitate the efficient implementation of the manufacturing process

* Reward: A synonymous term for recognition that will move the strategies of the organization forward with consistent administration and appropriate enthusiasm.

A common element throughout the assessment process is open, honest, and complete communication with nothing held back. We had to be totally up-front with what was happening, what we thought would happen, and what we hoped might happen. We must also never make a promise we did not intend to keep We must "walk the talk."

SPECIAL FUNCTION TEAMS

Besides the Core Process and Administrative Teams, problem solving teams also had a specific purpose such as solely, waste, customer, environmental management, labor and management communications, etc. In the beginning, the purpose for special function teams was as narrow as possible to create a limited focus on key strategies. Teams then grew and expanded through the normal process of evolution as they dealt with more complex issues and become more confident in their abilities to work together.

As strategies progressed and greater details for achievement became apparent, including resources outside the organization into team functions to achieve the desired results-suppliers, customers, etc.--became necessary. The most prevalent teams were the customer quality teams. These teams contained various operators, administrative and sales people who serviced a particular customer, and operators, supervisors, and purchasers from the customer's location. The teams used the "Kano Quality Model" as an organizational structure. (See accompanying side bar.)

STRUCTURE OF QUALITY ACTIVITIES

Authority and direction came from the Core Team. The Core Team steered the process to ensure staying on track. It also provided authority to the process teams and was a valuable communication link between the customer and the process teams.

The quality manager was a key element in the process. This person provided the education and training that the teams would need to resolve issues effectively. The quality manager was also responsible for the following:

* Audit the process to ensure the teams are performing the check and document functions

* Audit the processes developed by the teams to ensure they are standardized and implemented throughout the team

* Form and facilitate customer quality teams directly.

Document control is the responsibility of every team, but it is the primary responsibility of the Core Team. Core process teams form around core processes and around meeting customer requirements. Administrative and sales teams are the eyes and ears of the customer inside the process. Special function teams form around specific issues to support the core process teams.

Mountains of documented evidence testify to the effectiveness of the process. The most profound and convincing evidence has been the transformation of a troubled facility into the most profitable among its peers in less than five years. This transformation has given the people of Tracy a sense of pride and the feel of a winner.

IN THIS ARTICLE, YOU WILL LEARN:

* Contributions that a team of employees can make to improve a manufacturing operation

* Four elements of an assessment process

* Finding competitive advantages possible from implementation of a core team.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

* www.inlandonline.com

* For more information on the October 28-30 International Corrugated Containers Conference and Trade Fair, go to www.tappi.org

RELATED ARTICLE: Kano Quality Model.

A Kano Quality Model provides a purpose for each customer team using the following structure:

* Establish a communications link between the customer and the knowledge base that can meet the requirements

* Ensure providing basic quality to the customer to meet their basic requirements

* Investigate the possibility to providing enhanced performance quality for a customer to allow performance beyond the level of basic requirements

* Discover hidden elements of excitement quality for the particular customer. (The customer may not know they need or want these elements. Discovering these hidden requirements is the key to exciting a customer and cementing a relationship with him or her.)

At Inland Tracy, this interactive customer process or Kano Quality Model had the designation Yes! The Yes! process defined three levels of quality performance using customer requirements. The first level was what any customer should expert from any supplier--basic quality. The second level of quality involved asking the customer what they wanted or needed beyond the basic requirements. Doing that which exceeded the basic requirements was performance quality.

This third level came from discovering in interaction with the customer those items that would improve their operation of which they might be unaware. That final level is excitement quality. The objective of the Yes! process is making the performance and excitement elements of quality performance basic so the customer than expects that performance from any competitor. When that occurs, we have a competitive advantage and have forced competition to meet our standard of performance.

About the author: John L. Croushore is general manager of the Inland Paperboard and Packaging box plant in Tracy, California, USA. A graduate of Villanova University with a B.S. in economics, he started in the corrugated box industry with Owens-Illinois Inc. in 1966. After 17 years of financial and manufacturing experience, he developed a specialization in quality and motivational processes as Quality Improvement Manager for the Owens box plant in Los Angeles, California, USA. In 1986, he joined Weyerhaeuser Company. He became CFO and director of administration for Cedar River Paper Co., a Weyerhaeuser company. He joined Inland Tracy in 1996. Contact him by phone at [phone] or email [e-mail]