Open AccessAlcoa's Michigan Casting Center runs the business from the bottom up
Author(s) -
Groszkiewicz Dan,
Warren Brent
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
journal of organizational excellence
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1531-6653
pISSN - 1531-1864
DOI - 10.1002/joe.20086
Subject(s) - workforce , center (category theory) , production (economics) , focus (optics) , casting , operations management , top down and bottom up design , set (abstract data type) , business , industrial organization , engineering , management , marketing , economics , computer science , economic growth , microeconomics , art , programming language , chemistry , physics , crystallography , optics , software engineering , visual arts
A manufacturing facility set out to tackle serious production problems and workforce instability. With each level of improvement came an even deeper understanding of other problems and opportunities. Now, five years later, a new operating philosophy, organizational structure, flow of processes, and set of tools enable the hourly associates to run the plant and managers to focus on more strategic issues—and a once‐troubled business is now healthy and competitive. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.