Nearly sixty business leaders toured Bilstein’s pristine shop floor and heard six front-line leaders discuss the changes that empowered their operators to take on more responsibility to run the day to day operations. The trust between the operators and leaders ultimately freed the time of management to focus on growth opportunities.

At each of five stations was a huddle board, a medium through which best practices and continuous improvement ideas are discussed on a daily basis. The huddle boards are something tangible – a meeting point and organization station – that helped facilitate improvement related discussions and information dissemination. Yet it was the people and their dedication to solving the problems listed on the huddle board each shift that were the true power behind the company’s solutions.

For Definity’s clients, huddle boards are one of many tools and techniques used to manage toward a sustainable system of continuous improvement. For Bilstein of America, the behavioral changes Definity helped put in place sparked a 12.5% plant-wide OEE increase, 10% margin expansion, a 9.6% increase in shocks produced per labor hour and – maybe the most indicative expression of the culture change – being voted as a Top Workplace in 2010 by the Cincinnati Enquirer and was a finalist in the Cincinnati Business Courier’s Best Places to Work 2010.

Please click to enjoy photos from the Bilstein of America EAGLE Soars Plant Tour.

Please click to read the entire Transformation EAGLE success story.

Please click to watch the Transformation EAGLE video.