18% more output in one month, by working people less
Pella Corporation
Manufacturing
+18%
average output within a month, with fewer hours worked
+19%
efficiency gain
>50%
turnover reduction
The problem
Most of Pella's windows and doors are custom orders with short delivery times, so demand swung hard and without warning. Some weeks people were cut back to 32 hours. Other weeks they worked 56, and at times as many as 58 with only one day off. Burnout set in. Analysis showed as much as a 20% productivity loss on the lines when demand was heaviest, and the plant produced at lower rates in 2018 than in 2017. Turnover was high and costly, and third shift was very hard to staff.
What we did
- Analyzed the production lines to prove to leadership that long hours were costing output
- Surveyed and involved the workforce in choosing the schedule
- Designed schedules that flex from 80 to 119 production hours a week
- Built in a way to add 50% capacity in single-shift areas without adding an entire shift of people
- Gave third shift predictable time off, up to three days off a week on a 40-hour paycheck, and trained the whole facility to support the change
The results
- +18% average output within a month of the new night-shift schedule
- +19% efficiency over the same period
- More than 50% reduction in turnover
- 104 to 156 days off per year for employees
- Applications up over previous months, and third-shift hiring went from nearly impossible to a greatly improved applicant pool
Joel Dobson, Senior Productivity Manager and former Plant Manager, Murray site
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