Granite Rock teams also make numerous benchmarking trips to other companies. Rita Alves went with a group to a Tennessee aggregate-and-concrete producer in October. Quarry foreman Bill Larkin and others visited a gold mine. ("We looked at materials handling, equipment specifications, their mining plans," says Larkin. "And little details such as how they run their shifts, how many people are on them, how many mechanics they've got, and so forth, compared with what we do.") Clark got together with another business known for its interest in on-time delivery. "We exchanged statistics with Domino's Pizza. We learned from them some places to get better maps. Then we hired some college students to pencil in street numbers on the maps. Domino's does that."
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Act on Information
Woolpert at times sounds like a Zen master. "Focus every day on being better. Every time management has a meeting, they should be reviewing improvements in process, not sitting around and talking about dead historical data." What counts, in other words, isn't just gathering information but implementing changes -- and that too must be built into the company's everyday operation. The keys:
* Respond Systematically, Not Ad Hoc. "We always had customer-complaint forms. You'd fill 'em out, sign 'em, and send 'em to somebody. But what did we learn from them? They were filed away." The speaker is quality-support manager Dave Franceschi, who is patiently explaining what it means to respond systematically. "The result was, we had no way of keeping the problem from happening again."
Today every complaint generates a product-service discrepancy (PSD) report, a copy of which lands on Franceschi's desk. Over time Franceschi can chart exactly where problems lie and how much each one costs the company. "Look here," he says, pulling out a copy of the year-to-date analyses that circulate throughout the company. "Thirty percent of all PSDs are due to employee errors. One-quarter of that 30% is property damage. Which means one of our trucks ran over a telephone pole or backed over some equipment at a job site. If we have a problem backing up, maybe we need a different size mirror on the trucks."
The critical line on the PSD reports is the one marked "root-cause analysis." In the past, says a manager who has been listening to Franceschi, a bad batch of asphalt might be ascribed to "dirty rock," meaning aggregate with too many fine particles. Today Franceschi won't accept a PSD unless it offers a true explanation, such as "faulty screen at the quarry." The explanation alone often shows what must be done to correct the problem.
* Set Up Teams to Share, Analyze, and Act on Information. Here's how Granite Rock buys its cement trucks, an annual investment of close to $1 million. The company assembles a truck-buying team, composed (typically) of several managers, a driver or two from every branch slated for a new truck, and a few mechanics. The team -- not yet constrained by a budget -- compiles a wish list. What brand of truck? What make of engine? Of mixer? Of transmission? "Ten years ago," says Wes Clark, "a vice-president would have made 10 calls to vendors in the morning and made a decision that afternoon."
The vice-president, however, probably wouldn't have even considered a score or more of items brought up by the members of last winter's team. Maybe the controls for the slump-control motor should be inside the cab, where they're easier to maintain. Maybe we should specify paint quality -- haven't you noticed that our trucks look better after we repaint them? And what about gear ratios? Our newer trucks can't go slow enough to pour concrete for a curb-laying machine. The group heard gear-ratio presentations from three suppliers, then sent two of them back to prepare detailed bids. The team argued about air-conditioning ( Nah -- we don't really need it, except maybe in one location) and about the silicon hoses that are the newest thing in diesel engines ( The hoses are OK, said the mechanics, but the clips they come with tend to give out). Later, members made field trips to companies using trucks with some of the key components. There was still no fixed budget -- but the group argued vehemently about prices and trade-offs nevertheless. Some of them, they knew, would eventually have to defend their recommendations before the company's executive committee.
Granite Rock makes virtually all such decisions the same way. A team selected the quarry's $850,000 Komatsu bulldozer. A team solved the dust-control problem that kept screwing up two of the asphalt plants. Continuing teams, both local and companywide, meet regularly to work on improvements in dozens of areas. Mike Barton, a mechanic at Watsonville, serves on a team that's studying how to meet new EPA emission requirements for mixer trucks. Franceschi serves on a data-resources team whose first mission is to put his PSD data on-line.
All told, the company has more than 100 active teams, their activities and recommendations monitored by Fran-ceschi's office. Through the teams, knowledge is gathered and shared, appropriate action taken. That's learning.
