Rapid growth and rapid sales are coveted claims by every company, but two years ago Allen Kitchen & Bath CEO Gary Allen realized that growth and sales are transparent claims when they don’t generate more cash. The Madison-based company manufactures countertops and sells complete kitchen and bath remodeling jobs. Allen’s 40 person workforce was pushing 18% more orders through the pipeline, but waste-ridden and inefficient processes only congested the flow, so that the total order processing time was pushing five weeks, and even then they were still scrambling. Allen recalls that “life was chaos.”
As a first step to identify waste, WMEP Manufacturing Specialist Jerry Thiltgen assisted the organization to literally map out each step of their processes on a 30-foot wall, from first contact with the client to final project closeout. Allen found the process, called Value Stream Mapping, eye-opening: “It surprised all of us how cumbersome and inefficient we had become. Many steps were duplicated and others were not assigned to anyone.” They then designed a future state map, as a guide to improvement.
The WMEP team also delved into the culture at Allen Kitchen & Bath, to make the organization more centered around empowered teams. Before the Lean Culture project, most operations-level decisions were still made by Gary himself, leaving him little or no time to devote to company strategy or other high-level decisions. But by implementing Core/Steering and project teams, employees are now more prepared and empowered to make those decisions without having to involve Allen. And for Allen Kitchen & Bath, efficiency means eliminating wasteful steps, not eliminating people. “What amazed me,” Allen adds, “was that we were able to add staff, and it wasn’t all centered around reducing. The positions paid for themselves.”
If you ask Gary Allen, he’ll be the first to reiterate his realization that the Lean transformation is a journey, not an overnight quick-fix, but that his call to WMEP was the first step in the right direction. Already they have seen an estimated $20,000 in costs saved, $96,000 in increased sales, increased sales per employee, and reduced lead times and defect rates. And that five week order process? Now it hovers around just six days! “The work with WMEP forced us to analyze and recognize our deficiencies, and it gave us a more reliable work environment,” says Allen.