Implementation of Lean Transactional at Tenneco Europe

After having successfully implemented lean manufacturing in the 1990ies and lean engineering since 2004, Tenneco Europe decided to expand Lean to their administrative organizations in October 2009. The implementation approach was directly derived from lean engineering [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]. After having defined a vision and a road map, a lean steering committee, composed of senior managers and a lean coordinator, identified and supported the first areas for implementation of lean in their transactional processes. It was decided to challenge the organization by selecting some critical cross functional processes. Transactional workshops were defined and executed according to Tenneco's best practice:

• a 2-day-training of all the people involved in the workshops
• an intensive 3-day-workshop to identify:
  • the customer and its needs
  • the current state map and its gaps
  • the future state map
  • and finally an action plan and metrics to track the progress of the project
• 3 months for the implementation of the action plan
• 3 months to sustain the new process by monitoring key metrics
• weekly meetings and monthly reporting-outs to the senior managers.

After more than one year of implementation, the results are very encouraging

• Significant reduction of cross-functional process lead times from 20% to more than 50%.
• Freed-up time (less effort) due to waste elimination. Redeployment of the freed-up time to high value-added tasks.
• Improved quality and accuracy of data reports
• ‘Soft-side’ improvements such as:
  • Improved communication and alignment between departments
  • Employees have a better understanding of how their work. This contributes to the overall value stream to their customers
  • Improved cross-functional team building through activities during the lean training and the workshops
  • Developing a more consistent problem-solving mindset (seeing waste, finding root causes, continuous improvement)
  • Significant improvement in motivation and morale

This paper will illustrate, through concrete examples, the afore-mentioned results from the lean workshops.