We recently had a customer ask a question about how a company that operates the way T-S does, with participative management and company ownership by the employees, makes major decisions. As president I should know stuff like that but I was not able to answer her without some investigation. The answer I found is most easily described with an example of how we recently implemented a major change.
About 18 months ago, the company that provides our manufacturing and accounting software told us they were adding the ability to put a manufacturing order for our plant directly on the computer.
When we make out an order to produce books in our plant we have always typed all the specifications and instructions on a 9 x 12" envelope. We then make ten to twelve copies of it so each department can see what they have to do and when to do it.
If there were any changes to the order during the production process all those copies had to be changed and with 400 to 800 jobs in production at any one time, keeping all those copies correct was practically a full time job. If one copy was incorrect, a mistake could occur.
The proposed new software would allow us to put the order on our computer system where changes could be recorded immediately and the production departments could then produce their own copy but not until they needed it. Thus, they would always get the current information.
To decide whether or not we should do this and, if so, how it could be done, our computer manager put together a twelve person committee including at least one employee from every department in the plant and office.
Their assignment was to determine the potential benefits and problems and if it looked positive, develop an implementation plan that had the support of the majority of all the involved people. This was not a simple assignment.
They began meeting over a year ago and got together every other week.
At the end of each meeting they published their minutes for all who were interested to see. They gathered comments from other employees, discovered new problems and gradually got all 250 people, including me, on board.
Over a six month period these people met 14 times. They used brainstorming and other fancy techniques to try to uncover and solve potential problems.
Tbeir original plan was very complex but after 14 meetings it ended up very simple. By the time they (the committee ended up with 2O people including one manager) finished, virtually every T-S employee had been exposed to their ideas and everyone was strongly encouraged to comment.
In June they put their plan into effect by trying the new on-line concept on 50 jobs. They have since met regularly to review how it is working and they tell me by the time you read this, every order in our plant should be "on-line".
I'm not well enough informed to know what all this committee went through (although I do know that at one point it looked like the change would never fly), or why it took 14 meetings to accomplish, but I do approve of the process.
If you intend to run a company by participative management then people have to participate. If a decision or change is going to effect you then you should have the opportunity to state your views. It's actually your duty.
We have over 100 people currently involved in committees that are working on ideas just as complex as the on-line job order. For better or worse, it's our way of life. It's the way we make decisions.
Atilla the Hun might not approve of this decision making process but then we're not out to plunder Mongolia or whatever it was that he plundered. We just want to run a business and get the people involved.
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If you missed that article , here's a synopsis. In addition to our main plant capabilities that produce soft and hard bound books in quanfifies from about 500 to 6000, we also have a separate operation that does soft and hard bound books in runs from 25 to 500. This is done on totally different equipment and has some restrictions such as no blues and marginal halftone reproducfion, but otherwise it does offer something unique.
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