In retrospect, the first several months after Braccini's return -- the rest of 1990, really -- was the easy part of the trip. The way was smooth, the mountains still in the distance. Braccini brought a few consultants in to do some early training. The action teams began to meet and to register accomplishments. One created a quality-assurance manual, the company's first. Others began defining and documenting job processes with an eye to identifying bottlenecks. To be sure, the teams were new to the game and sometimes spun their wheels. And not everyone was buying this weird concept of turning the company upside down. The warehouse manager didn't like it. Neither did Cinde Braccini. To her, it smacked of the monkeys' running the zoo.
Oh, well. Steve figured a little inefficiency and a little carping were inevitable. Surely, he was doing something right. Sales for 1990 were up substantially over those for 1989. Profits were healthy. Maybe full acceptance was only a matter of time -- and of refining the system so it worked better. Over Christmas, on holiday in Jamaica, he read H. James Harrington's The Improvement Process. When he returned he decided to delegate still more authority, as Harrington recommended. Before, managers had brought issues to the teams to work on. Now Braccini set up an employee body called the Continuous Improvement Council. The CIC would be responsible for the teams. It would also have authority to do anything necessary to improve quality levels.
Meanwhile, Braccini himself could begin pondering everything else the company would need for growth. More training. That new computer. Those other branches. Applied Materials, he had heard, was opening a facility in Austin, Tex. Maybe Pro could ride along on Applied's coattails.
* * *
In 1991, as Pro's transformation picked up speed, the road began to get a little treacherous.
On the plus side, Braccini noticed with satisfaction that the teams kept finding ways to improve operations. One group figured out how to alter the order-processing system to eliminate early shipments, responsible for about 5% of all rejects from customers. Another group simplified warehouse procedures so the company could be sure to ship out by 4 p.m. every order received before noon. A third worked specifically with Applied Materials, developing ways to ensure 100% on-time delivery of 100% correct parts.
Training, too, began to percolate through the company. One set of consultants taught teamwork. Another taught what they called Total Responsibility Management; still others communication skills. Outside the office, individual employees went on benchmarking trips to Hewlett-Packard and Boise-Cascade distribution centers. Some attended specialized seminars in subjects such as collections; others went to industry training programs sponsored by the Western Association of Fastener Distributors. In effect, the training had both text and subtext. The employees learned specific, job-related skills. They also learned to "think quality" -- to examine every procedure for possible improvements. COD orders often go out as credit orders? Let's get a big, red "COD" stamp to prevent the error. New customers find Pro slow in opening accounts? Let's try a "courtesy account" of $100, opened on the spot with no credit check. After so much training, says Paul Hathaway, a quality-control technician, things "just started snowballing. Quality just started rolling through the whole company, spreading to different departments."
Assuming the internal changes were proceeding apace, Braccini hit the gas on the growth front. He met with IBM about the company's new AS/400 minicomputer, which, he realized, could provide Pro with capabilities unique in the industry. Using remote terminals, customers could punch in their own part numbers, quantities needed, and delivery dates; the computer would automatically generate orders, invoices, and buy lists for Pro's purchasing department. Warehouse workers pulling parts off the shelf could carry portable bar-code scanners connected by radio to the computer; they'd know instantly that the parts were correct, and the computer could calculate instantaneous inventory levels. Trumpeting such soon-to-be-installed capabilities, Braccini prepared a proposal for a new Pro branch in Austin to handle Applied's inventory management. Meantime, he mounted a search for a general manager to run the San Jose operation. That would give him more time to plan Pro's rosy future.
But while Braccini was peering down the road, his passengers were wondering if he knew where he was going. Take the teams, for example. Sure, there were accomplishments to point to -- and now, looking back, the accomplishments add up. Back then, who knew if it was all worth the time and effort? Every team met every week for an hour or an hour and a half. Most departments had weekly or biweekly meetings, and the new Continuous Improvement Council had meetings of its own. Some teams -- those with the most forceful individuals among their members -- got a lot done. Others took forever to accomplish even little changes. Did Steve know? Did Steve care? Then too, lines of authority and responsibility were growing murkier by the month. Before, Pro had been run in the traditional way: Steve and Cinde at the top, with a full complement of middle managers between them and the rest of the employees. Now Steve was inverting the pyramid. What was that supposed to mean?
In fact, Braccini was groping. At the outset he had said the employees were in charge. But the teams got their issues from management and had to submit solutions to management for approval. Later, hoping to boost the teams' ability to make changes directly, he asked managers to join them. But now line employees figured there was no need to participate; the managers would do what they would have done anyway. CIC members such as Michelle Thibaudeau, employee-relations administrator, began picking up the grumbling around the coffee machine. "There was, um, a breakdown in communication," she says tactfully.
The CIC was the wild card in this mix. Braccini had given it authority to do anything necessary to improve the company's operation. In May the group flexed its muscles, asking the managers again to step down from the teams and announcing it now would run them. Trouble was, the managers were still responsible for implementing proposals -- and they weren't too wild about this upstart CIC. Nor was the CIC as effective as it might have been. "We didn't know what we were doing," says Paul Hathaway, bluntly. "And we were feeling this extreme resentment from management."
