Read More VIBCO Vibration Nation Blog Posts
VIBCO is Touring VIBCO... Finally!
by Linda Kleineberg | September 19, 2012
Most people familiar with VIBCO Vibrators know that we open our doors and regularly conduct plant tours to help other organizations see how improvement can happen and find inspiration for their own improvement efforts. To date, more than 5000 people from more than 400 organizations have toured our facility, met and spoken with our employees, and been amazed and encouraged by the end-to-end genius of VIBCO employees.
Imagine our embarrassment when we realized that we hadn't actually toured our own employees through the entire plant so they, too, could benefit from seeing the whole picture. We're a pretty close-knit group, so we just assumed that everyone had an idea about what everyone else did. We've collaborated on countless projects, we've shared great moments together, we've gotten through difficult challenges together... but we somehow forgot to share the incredible tour experience within our four walls.
Not anymore!
Last Thursday, about half of the VIBCO assembly team spent the morning "going to the gemba" to see how the other parts of VIBCO function - reception, sales, accounting, shipping, machine shop - the whole enchilada. In the coming weeks, every VIBCO employee will take the famous VIBCO tour.
"I didn't really know how everything worked up there in the office... they do a lot!" was one comment.
"Wow - I didn't realize how much the office was using Lean - that was awesome!" said another.
Already, we're seeing an improvement energy boost and improved communication across the organization. Just this morning, assembler Lucy Manley was proud to show off an improvement that was inspired by her tour through sales and marketing. Lucy collaborated with Sue, Amy and Ron to change the way she receives and organizes her job orders.
This is just the first of many improvements that will certainly result from the VIBCO employee tours.
Want to inspire your team? If you're interested in taking a tour of our plant, please send an email to linda@vibco.com