Magneti Marelli
Context
In November 2017, Magneti Marelli, a multinational company operating in the automotive industry, started to support 4 plants (Corbetta EL, Tolmezzo AL, Bursa AL, Bielsko Biala SS) in their journey towards a new way of working and eventually the WCM (World Class Manufacturing – a structured production methodology, involving the whole company) Gold Certificaton.
Objectives
The project aims were to facilitate the adoption of a new way of working, a new sensitivity and a new approach so as to help the plants to reach their goals in a faster and more effective way. Achieving the WCM Gold Certification means to make a step ahead on the continuous improvement path in order to certify people development and the value they have been able to create for the plant itself.
Contents
The Golden League is a useful activity that we designed and delivered for many years in different companies (FCA, Whirlpool, Magneti Marelli) that adopt the WCM lean manufacturing methodology. Its goal is to create and nurture a new sensitivity and a new way of working throughout the plant and speed-up the WCM certification process. In order to reach such an ambitious objective, we designed and delivered a six-month project in each Plant, during which first line managers set their own teams and deployed an innovative project focused on Industry 4.0, robotics etc. All the projects have been identified starting from each plant’s specific needs emerging from the latest WCM audit. The final goal of each project was to facilitate the spread of a new way of working through “on the job” training (with a pinch of gamification) promoting a new idea of factory plant. Projects have been presented on a regular basis in front of a jury composed of Company/Plant Top Management which is in charge to evaluate strengths and areas of improvement. Aside from just technical skills, the jury evaluated the ability of every team to involve people, being proactive and able to effectively communicate. During the whole League, project leaders have been supported by Methodos coaches in a repeated and dedicated session, in order to set-up all the upcoming activities the best way. At the end of the League, the team that demonstrated to be the most effective in developing its project involving people, making sense of the activities keeping a strong focus on what we call “the soft side of change” was awarded with a cup in a special final ceremony.
Results
The Golden League started in November 2017 and involved 4 Magneti Marelli plants, 2 in Italy, 1 in Turkey and 1 in Poland, directly involving more than 500 people. The main result achieved was a higher degree of alignment with the Excellence principle that WCM methodology promotes. This was possible because of people’s active contribution and involvement, deep organizational listening, teamwork and the development of new ways of working.
One of the plants involved successfully passed the Expansion Audit, the gate to access the final Audit to the Gold. The other plants demonstrated a great improvement too, gaining points and increasing their WCM score and getting closer to their Gold certification.
The plants involved in the Golden League were very different in terms of size, headcount, country and business line, so it is quite difficult to give a precise idea of the average quantitative results. However, we can take one of the four plants as an example. In the case of this plant, 10 projects generated savings of 300.000 euros, 18 best practices were created (and uploaded on the company internal network), dozens of training and listening activities were completed, 100 people actively took part in one of the projects, and 1200 people were involved in at least one activity run by the 10 Golden League teams.