Implementing World Class Manufacturing Ideas - The Dalles/John Day Dams

Terry B. Armentrout1

Introduction

The key question is can a very autocratically lead, vertically defined organization change to a horizontal, employee empowered structure where the employees have significant influence? All too often managers look to a simple and easy procedure which will bring about dramatic change, however this kind of dreaming is naive. "For every complex question there is a simple answer, and it is wrong!"(Maslow, 1965). This experience described in this case indicates the transformation from the autocratic extreme to the team model takes a long time and is a difficult process. To begin the transformation at The Dalles and John Day has taken concerted effort over six years to set the foundations in place. Guiding the organization to a complete restructuring will take at least several more years. Managers and organizations who are not willing to make the long term commitment need not attempt the change!

Organizational change does not take place in a vacuum but in the real world of having to deal with adjacent organizations and with higher level organizations. Higher level manager support is necessary yet can present a challenge as they impose a uniformity of structure and a limit on creativity. Managers within the organization itself present challenges of working from a paradigm of the past and not being capable of grasping the ideas of the future. Indeed even the employees themselves have constricted visions which severely restrict the spectrum of possibilities.

The business of the organization goes on. The preconceived agenda of marching from A to B is interrupted with life. Unions, grievances, EEO complaints, catastrophes all impact the process and the change. All these hurdles have to be constructively dealt with if the transformation is to be successful. If the organization sees life as an impediment to metamorphosis, then change is easily derailed. If the organization sees life as the stuff from which an organization is built, then ample opportunity is available to test and restructure.

PROJECT HISTORY

The Corps of Engineers built The Dalles Dam in the late 1950s and with a significant addition to capacity in the early 1970s. John Day Dam came on line in the late 1960s. The Project Manager for most of that period was a dynamic and talented electrical engineer much in the mold of the emperor Constantine. He was a man of immense energy who influenced just about every project decision directly. Craftsman would tear down a broken machine then call the Project Manager to inspect it and prescribe the repair. His organizational structure reflected his style. He mentored several subordinate managers who became Project Managers at other dams or became the Project Manager at The Dalles/John Day.

The immediate predecessor was a prot g e of the manager described above. He imitated the style and held the power of decisions close. He authorized every purchase often adjusting quantities of items such as screw drivers and hand tools. His staff followed his example. Authority and power was severely restricted. Coordination meetings were often lecture style with the main business of the gatherings being the dishing out of assignments.

Section heads and foreman followed the lead of the project manager. They were fife lords who operated with the blessings of project manager, however they were very careful to protect their turf and property. They had very well defined hierarchy, well established and irrevocable practices, and intense suspicions for anyone outside their immediate work group. The Dalles is only 25 miles down stream from John Day, but it might as well have been in another third world country. If crews at one dam had a good idea, a new method, a new tool, or a new fixture they wouldn't share it with similar crews at the other dam.

This kind of leadership provided fertile breading ground for opposing forces within the work place. If not the birth place, one of the centers of discontent which lead to the formation of the United Power Trades Organization(UPTO). Many of the employees at the projects were among the movers and shakers who expelled the Columbia Trades Council and formed a totally new and very active union under rules of the Civil Service Reform Act. These employees had as their paradigm of work life the battle field where management and labor joust and inflect wounds on each other. Any benefit to one group must be at the expense of the other group. The main method of communicating was via grievances, unfair labor practices, and arbitration hearings. Union leadership was suspicious and cunning.

The Plan

The Plan is to implement a 3 tiered concept project coined World Class Hydro-Power Plants(Armentrout, 1991). The first tier in the plan is the conventional concept of Total Quality Management(TQM). Portland District had embraced the Philip Crosby version. Crosby TQM rests on four absolutes: 1. The standard of quality is the conformance to requirements. 2. The System of quality is prevention of defects. 3. Zero defects. 4. The measurement of quality is the Price of Non-Conformance(PONC). The project added a fifth absolute: 5. A commitment to continuous improvement.

The Second tier was the Just-In-Time(JIT) idea. Three points of focus describe the idea: 1. Eliminate or minimize Work In Process inventory (WIP), 2. Concentrate on improving value added processes. 3. Eliminate processes which add only cost. Much misunderstanding surrounds the JIT idea(Schonberger,1986). This is not a rush at the last moment to have men and material show up on the job just in time for work to begin. Work In Process is essentially a deposit of resources in an account which draws no interest. Partially completed work represents substantial investments. When these investments lay idle with out accomplishing their mission or earning an income, they present considerable costs. By analyzing the process and enabling work to flow from concept to completion manufacturers can better satisfy customer needs at reduced costs.

The third tier is the Flexibility and Tooling concept. Deming's point(Deming, 1991) is for output improvements to occur their has to be some change in the process. Merely willing or commanding an improvement accomplishes nothing except conflict and anxiety. Often the means of production are arranged in a fixed array. Even "thinking" work processes become fixed, unable to bend to changing conditions and environments. Work with crews falls into paradigms of only one process of yesterday's practices will accomplish tomorrow's mission. Machinery of production is fixed in an inflexible position and the production process is made sub-optimal to the production fixture. By designing flexibility into our work, either "thinking" work, physical labor, or machine processes, we allow the option of improvement.

Complimentary to the concept of flexibility is the idea of de-centralization or powering downward. Forming the organizational structure such that decisions and coordination take place at the lowest possible level. The farther up the organization decisions are made, the more confusion, the more lack of understanding of the situation, and the more entropy negatively impact the group output. Craftsman coordinating with craftsman about work schedules and related details will result in more efficient use of the resources. Implied with craftsman dealing with craftsman is a mixed crafts crew. Traditional crew definition around major crafts results in strong territorial tendencies. Conflicts over these boundaries and coordination rises naturally to levels above the foreman for resolution. Mixed crews have the capability of coordination and conflict resolution at the foreman level or below.

An additional benefit of mixed crews is the increased potential for creativity and innovation. Traditional craft crews group people who think alike, have similar outlooks on problem solving, see the physical world through their particular skill base. "Another article of faith(7) in the holistic theory of social betterment is that no one man can do everything."(Maslow, 1965) Mixed crews broaden the outlook. One is forced to at least peek at the world through a different set of eyes, to describe flow processes as water in a pipe rather than electrons in a wire, to think of voltage rather than pressure. By mixing the crafts new dimensions and new possibilities are added to the innovation process. New symbiotic thinking occurs.

Implementation

The first attempt at the team process was the design and construction of new office spaces for the Engineering and Contracts section. This group represented probably the most formally trained people on the project. Their problem was to design new office spaces to house an expanded staff. Their first step was to define the emerging mission and expand the group vision from doing just "engineering" work to include environmental compliance, digital scanning activities, contract quality assurance administration, and stability monitoring. This group had a need to bring closure to the process and continually felt anxiety without having a "final solution." They had a real problem of seeing the definition of their space as an ongoing issue with perhaps never having a "solution". "We can learn...that creativeness is correlated with the ability to withstand the lack of structure, the lack of future, lack of predictability, of control, the tolerance for ambiguity, for planlessness."(Maslow, 1962) The arrangement is always subject to revision.

The second attempt was with the administration and warehouse section. Included in the group problem solving processes was a group therapy effort. This group developed or perhaps released venoms which had roots well into the past and poisons from the present. "This is the point: the high level complaint is not to be taken as simply like any other complaint; it must be used to indicate all the preconditions which have been satisfied in order to make the height of this complaint theoretically possible. ... rather than expecting that improved conditions will make all complaints disappear."(Maslow, 1965) The group was able to concentrate on some problem solving effort and was able to develop an action plan with real improvements.

The third attempt was with the ladies locker room. This was a task oriented group with a focus only on one problem. Develop a plan for a ladies locker room equal to or better than the men's locker room. This group included every lady who worked in the power house and the necessary crafts to construct the new facility. Included in the problem was location, design, and construction. This was a high functioning group. The group members were broad minded employees who could listen to and understand other ideas, could think convergently to assemble a single proposal from several different unconnected ideas, could seek common ground so the final solution included broad range of individual inputs. The end product though was not identifiable with any individual idea. The Project how has an excellent ladies locker room.

"Team ADP" is a group formed to handle our LAN, software, and personal computer. The team leader is the Chief of Operations with the major player being the LAN manager. The team consists of the Chief of Operations, the LAN manager, 2 TC/L operators, 1 TC/I operator, 1 TC/J electronic control craftsman and 1 TC/K electronic control craftsman. This team has been very successful at scrounging computer hardware, at writing application software from standard commercial programs, and at connecting The Dalles and John Day into a WAN. This team is responsible for implementation of the MAPCON software which requires some modification for project application. This is another high functioning group which can synergize easily. They are very productive and very innovative.

The JBS and AWS teams represent the project in the design and development of these new systems. This team membership has changed to meet the demands of the particular design phase of the system. Originally operations played a lead role in the concept of the by pass system. This phase of work included formulating information of how the project operated and testing assumptions with The Dalles hydraulic model at WES. As design work shifted from concept to design memorandum development so did our emphasis. Operations gave up their lead role to the engineering and contracts section. Here the project emphasis was to have included into the original design all the maintenance and material handling features which would make the long term task of working on screens more efficient. All sorts of expertise was brought into the process including craft level people who had substantial experience with the John Day JBS. This team was very successful in the design and concept phases. Now the team is moving into plans and specification review and actual construction participation. This team functions very well and is highly innovative. They are especially adept at defining problems and forming optional solutions.

The major group effort was developing a new maintenance organization. The original group included all maintenance supervisors and all union officers. UPTO was very skeptical of the effort and tried every way possible to derail it. They involved the District Commander, they fomented discontent, and they drug their feet with legal issues. Supervisors were spread widely from eager and active participation to subversion and withdrawal. Different supervisors were designated to lead the team at different times as a training opportunity. Some flatly refused to participate in that process. Pocket interest groups were paranoid over the teams efforts and demanded participation. Eventually the team grew to twenty plus members. The team met every week for several months hammering out details of the new structure. Eventually the team did develop a solution for a trial organization structure. UPTO demanded the opportunity to bargain I&I resulting in an implementation agreement. "Another widely held view is that there is a fixed quantity of influence in a company or plant. Consequently if subordinates (or unions)are permitted to exercise more influence as to what goes on in the organization, the superiors (or unions) have correspondingly less. The pie, so to speak, is thought to be just so big, and if some people are given more, others must have less."(Likert, 1961)

From the new organization spawned several organizational teams. The most notable was the "Test Crew". This crew has primary responsibility for the John Day fish passage. This crew was designated the "Test Crew" because they did not want to be the "Fish Crew". It is a multi-crafted crew which contains mechanics, electricians, iron worker/riggers, crane operators, utilitymen and laborers. The crew foreman was a mechanic. This crew meets every Tuesday morning for an hour and develops the plans for performing work, developing better fixtures and processes, and outlining strategies for the future. This crew has been successful in forming and implementing new methods and procedures far beyond any other comparable crew.

The Project management team also emerged. This team includes the section heads and the project manager. "Under the circumstances in which a general is in charge of a whole group of generals to whom he has given high power, he will find to his amazement that he has far more power and influence than he had before passing out power. The more he gives, the more he retains, so to speak"(Maslow, 1965) They typically meet once a week with discussions about the running of the project. Everyone of the section heads is in line to be "Acting Project Manager" as the need arises. The first goal is to disseminate information about what is happening in each particular section. This gives each section chief the ability to make informed decisions as the responsibility falls to him/her. Further actions in any one section come under the influence of the whole and "fit" into the overall project objectives.

A related management team is the collection of all supervisors. This team again relates providing an enlightened supervision group. "He sees most human beings as having real capacity for growth and development, for the acceptance of responsibility, for creative accomplishments. He regards his subordinates as genuine assets in helping him fulfill his own responsibilities, and he is concerned with creating the conditions which enable him to realize these assets."(McGregor, 1960) Not a problem solving group per se, its main purpose is to provide a better trained/educated supervision to the project. This groups meets about monthly with more emphasis on becoming more successful leaders. They have taken on two decisions: develop a project wide award policy and write a project mission statement. The group has an award policy which we will bargain I&I with the unions with before the next appraisal rounds and the mission statement still needs finishing touches.

The resource maintenance crew is an interesting study in how a team has to improve their skills. The crew foreman saw the team effort as something he need not participate in. The team would define work statements, decide how to do the work, and decide who should be the project leader. The foreman was not involved in this process. Several of their jobs finished with poor quality. The major reason was the team effort did not include the foreman and "consensus" was weak and contrived. Even though all crew members agreed with the procedures, they did not fully participate in the decisions. A job of building a new loading ramp for the tour train resulted in the bursting of the concrete forms. The foreman was furious. The men were angry with each other and angry with the foreman. The process problem was the foreman and knowledgeable craftsman did not participate in the consensus resulting in poor decisions. The leaders have to be integral players in team processes. Consensus includes the foreman.

Several crews have formed teams including John Day mechanical crew, resource maintenance crew, The Dalles mechanical crew, and The Dalles electrical crew. The John Day mechanical crew has been successful in defining and implementing better organized shop spaces and crew locker rooms. This team needs more time and training to develop to their full potential. The Dalles mechanical and electrical crews have been unsuccessful in developing or implementing improvements.

Training

The Project focuses on three training efforts for this experiment. First is a wider understanding of how the Project fits into the broader picture of the Region, the Government and the economy. Training sessions are once a quarter with such topics as Dr. Don Balmer discussing the world energy picture, Dr. Hartzel discussing personnel and communication issues, Mr. Jonathan Schleeter discussing the Pacific Northwest Grain industry, Dr. Dan Ogden discussing the development of the Federal Columbia River Power System. Future sessions will includes subjects like principles of marketing, National Policy Process, Operation of Bonneville Power, the Direct Service Industries, Tow Boat Companies, and Public Utility Districts.

Training for the supervisor group differs from the one described above in that it focuses on supervisory skills and team leadership skills. The training sessions are loosely structured and mostly project generated. The sessions are seminars versus lectures with an emphasis on participation in learning and discussions. Subjects have included general motivation, the effects of awards, project mission, synergistic organizations, and awards policy.

Planners are the people who arrange for major materials and spearhead non-routine work activities. Training for them includes the federal procurement process, material requirements planning, network analysis, and basic statistics.

Problems and Opportunities

  • Leadership - Leadership is the greatest challenge and the greatest opportunity. The leaders initially in place were of the "old school" who saw their jobs as people who were top dog over a defined territory. "Freedom and trust given to authoritarians, for instance will simply bring out bad behavior in these people."(Maslow, 1965) They ruled with an iron hand and saw little reason to have their style mesh with the whole organization. Many of these people were either incapable of adopting a new outlook or unwilling to change. Fortunately father time and other attritions have removed most of this form of leader from their post. The new leadership style is a person with group skills, a consensus builder, and a person who builds on the ideas of crew members. The training efforts for the supervisor's group focuses on just this issue.
  • Followership - The second greatest challenge is to increase the ability of the rank and file to participate effectively in the group. Some craftsman are reluctant to speak up for fear of criticism from the leaders or from their peers. "Freedom and permissiveness and responsibility will make really dependent and passive people collapse in anxiety and fear."(Maslow, 1965) Some are continually speaking up but refusing to listen to the ideas of others. Many see a discussion as a battle field where a common solution is not possible. A discussion can only be a conquest of one idea or one personality over another. Few have the ability to think convergently, build new concepts out of fragments of others. The problem is how to develop good group skills, instill self confidence, and improve listening abilities.
  • Break Down Barriers - Barriers and territories exist at every level and at every direction. Perhaps it is the natural result of division of labor and natural to our previous notions of bureaucratic organizational models. Craftsmen will carve out their own territory having special tools, special knowledge and techniques, and ownership of shop space. Crews mark their territories with distinct lines of demarcation where one group works up to point and other crews do work from there on. Union stewards, craftsman, foreman and perhaps a Philadelphia Lawyer are necessary to determine who does what, when. If a system fails, all are pointing fingers at the other placing blame, assigning quilt and participating in uproar. Likewise managers of sections and other elements play the same game at a higher level. For flexibility to occur, these barriers need to disappear. The conflicts of separation need to be turned into process of participation and inclusion. Instead of leaders being the champion soldier of their respective constituency, need to forces of inclusion and cooperation.
  • Time - Things take time. Willing these changes to take place will not happen. Requesting employees to make significant departures from their previous paradigms of work life is a difficult task. Employees, supervisors, and managers have to be in a learning mode and allow the changes to pace themselves according to the capacities of the organization. This results in the proverbial immovable objective against the irresistible force.

Summary

Organizational transformation is an arduous process. Psychological and sociological factors place big impediments to the metamorphosis. They have to be dealt with positively. The improvements both in productivity and in morale are real and substantial. "The overall value of a process like this is not only the classification that results, but the growth of identification with the team and its responsibilities, and the sense of a degree of control by the group over its environment. There will have been compromises and adjustments, but the active involvement of the whole team and the sense of achievement when the task is completed provide important intrinsic rewards to all members."(McGregor, 1965) Like any other investment, diligence, persistence and a long term view are necessary for a substantial pay off.

The growth of identification with the team and its responsibilities sets up the foundations for a "Learning Organization". That is an organization which is a dynamic and active part of the work environment. Instead of employees passively taking what comes to them each work day, they actively seek to alter and improve the future. "Every time the group faces a business problem that cannot be solved easily and quickly on the basis of habit, past experience, or existing policy, there is an opportunity for team development. ...The 'dilemma-invention-feedback-generalization' process, and it is in many ways a model for all learning."(Blake, 1960) Building a team environment and a norm of participation and improvement, sets an irrevocable path. Turning back to the autocratic model is impossible at this stage.

References

Armentrout, Terry B.; "World Class Manufacturing and Hydro-Electric Production"; Water Power '89

Blake, R. R.; "Tenth Proceeding of the Action Research Training laboratory, West Point, NY; 1960

Deming, W. Edwards; "Out of Crisis"; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1991

Likert, R.; "New Patterns of Management; McGraw Hill, New York; 1961

Maslow, Abraham; "Eupsychian Management"; Irwin; 1965

Maslow, Abraham; "Notes on the Psychology of Being"; Brandeis University; 1962

McGregor, Douglas; "The Human Side of Enterprise"; McGraw Hill, New York; 1960

McGregor, Douglas; "The Professional Manager"; McGraw Hill, New York; 1967

1 American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Manager, The Dalles/John Day Dams, US Army Corps of Engineers, PO Box 564, The Dalles, OR 97058