My, how time flies! How is it possible that our year is nearly half over? It seems like it was not that long ago Dan and I were doing our annual Iowa tour and rolling out the overall goals for 2018!
Our people engagement goal of becoming orange belt level by December 31, 2018, is challenging us all to continue to learn and develop skills that will help us continually improve our operations and even our personal lives. I’m happy to report we have a number of teams and shops that have demonstrated they are familiar with the lean tools and PIMS. By doing so, they have achieved YELLOW belt status which is the first step to achieving orange belt level. In all honesty, most of the shops that have successfully been assessed as yellow are very close to being at the orange level! I believe the gap between yellow and orange is easy to close. As people apply the tools of 5S, standard work, and TPM and focus on getting their issues on their metric boards and addressing the problems and issues impacting their operations, it makes it obvious these things are making their jobs safer and more efficient! They are recognizing the positive results of their efforts by having fewer errors, increasing productivity, reducing lead times, reducing inventory, and improving processes.
So congratulations to all those that have made it to yellow belt! Keep up the good work! For those not quite there yet, I encourage you to review the assessment form and take it one sentence at a time! Before you know it, your team will be at the yellow level too!
As always if you need some help, I’m just a phone call away!
-Steve Forbes