Wausau Equipment Company
Case Assignment Questions

Situation:

After the first 2 improvement cycles (6 month), the following results were reached:

- Little progress had been made since the end of the second improvement cycle
- The attendance at meeting had dropped for all eight teams
- Some teams had postponed starting the third improvement cycle
- There was a sense of a loss of direction.

If the Lean initiative were to restart:

1) What would Steiger had to do to ensure that it was effective and sustainable?

If the Lean initiative were to be restarted, Steiger would have to make sure that the work environment is positive and that employees at all levels are willing to proactively overcome resistance to change and ready to get on the improvement process. To reach this objective, Steiger needs to ascertain leadership initiatives all the way down the organizational hierarchy - involving the company’s CEO as well as top, middle and lower level managers -, define departmental objectives and design performance measurement tools to assess the involvement and commitment of each employee.

Steiger should focus on effectively persuading and motivating top managers to positively contribute with the lean initiative implementation. Even though this has proved to be quite a challenging task, Steiger must find ways to foster, sharpen and put the leadership skills of managers into practice as to guarantee they will be able to envision the benefits of the lean implementation, engage and energize employees, and enable operational excellence.

To measure performance, Steiger should propose the implementation of a Balance Scorecard that would be used by managers of different areas to set financial, commercial, operational, and people-related objectives. With these objectives in mind, managers would not only align their departmental responsibilities with