The Factory That Turned Itself Around

In 1979, Ford Motor Company was about to shut down its stamping plant¹ in suburban Cleveland. The plant was at the bottom of the productivity pile among nine plants in the division. Communications between management people and hourly employees was almost nil. Production departments were quarrelling endlessly with the staff support departments. Then a near miracle occurred². By 1981, the plant improved its productivity dramatically³. It established a reputation for management and employees cooperation. And Ford decided to keep the 3,000-employee plant open.

Credit for the progress goes to a process known at Ford as Employee Involvement, or simply EI. Ford does not call it a program, but simply a process. The change in employee attitudes was preceded⁴, says Ford, by a new attitude on the part of the Ford Motor Company – and of the plant’s management. Three words describe the new management attitude: respect, trust, and confidence. With that attitude in place, the EI operates on the basis of employee participation in identifying and in solving problems associated with their work. The EI process was spearheaded⁵ by appointing new plant management which met with work groups throughout the factory. The meetings provided factual information about the critical productivity problems. The new managers acknowledged⁶ the mistakes that had been made ‘by a totally autocratic, production-driven Ford management.’ Under EI, 36 voluntary groups of employees and supervisors were created. They met regularly on company time to uncover and dig into problems of all sorts. There was no game playing. The focus was always on accepting mutual responsibility for a problem and solving it. As one example, the daily rate of rejection for dash panel⁷ stampings had been 150. An EI suggestion for changes in the stamping tools reduced the rejection rate to 40.

Typical employee comments sounded like these: ‘There’s only one thing wrong with EI. It’s 25 years late. It’s had a tremendous impact on attitudes here.’ ‘When guys on the line see something going wrong, they want it fixed right away. Before EI, they let it happen so that they could take an extra rest break.’ ‘Three or four years ago when a boss came down on the floor⁸, nobody would really talk to him. Now, if we have something to say, we spit it out⁹. And he’s listening.’

Notes: stamping plant¹ – штамповочный завод, occur² – случаться, dramatically³ – разительно, precede⁴ – предшествовать, spearheaded⁵ – возглавлять, acknowledge⁶ – признавать, dash panel⁷ – приборная панель, floor⁸ – цех, spit out⁹ – высказывать, выпаливать

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