Workforce Marketing, Parker Brothers Makes aNew Game Plan Patricia E. Moody The mustachioed gentleman with the top hat all the way back through white collar areas. and tux who has adorned the MONOPOLY TM Its Total Quality Management program was game for more than 50 years had an unusual well underway, including large doses of train­ appearance late last year on the DOver of afour­ ing , by the time the bad news came down. color brochure marketing the people behind 1\vo years into the improvement efforts, the boardgame. vice president of finance and CFO Dennis Ascenario not uncommon to manufac­ Miller described results as "dramatic improve­ turing companies hit the Salem, MA plant ments in profitability and a calculable annual hard. Following 85 years of family ownership, cost savings of $2.3 million" from the invest­ ~1936 Parker Brothers Parker Brothers was acquired by giant Hasbro ments made in improvements of $100,000 in 1991. Operations are being transferred to a annually. "When you are responsible for the Western Massachusetts facility, 150 miles dis­ numbers, the impact of a program really sinks tant. The human cost? Approximately 300 in. I knew my staff would be highly sought "What we had to do manufacturing and distribution jobs lost, after by other companies because the TQM here was turn a along with 100 administrative positions, training realiy contributed to the professional negative into the many held by second and third-generation development of my people." employees. Parker Brothers senior executives devel­ positive. " Parker Brothers, however, decided to cap­ oped and launched an extensive campaign to italize on the work its people had done over the market their employees, inViting manufactur­ . years to improve manufacturing operations. ing, retail, and municipal managers to attend The company undertook a comprehensive presentations on world-class manufacturing as effort to market its employees, an innovative implemented at the plant, by the implementers approach dubbed world-class outplacement. themselves. Employees from material control, Several years before, the company had graphics, fabrication, injection molding, Rich Uncle !iii is a lrademark 01 recognized that the very competitive toy busi­ maintenance, assembly, distribution and Tonka Corporation. © 1936. ness reqUired great speed and flexibility. And administration were showcased as presenters 1992 Parker Brothers, a division 01 Tonka Corporation. Used wffh the pipeline to its customers had to be smooth, during the series of seminars. Says Parker permiss;on- 22 Target World-Class Manufacturing Results • Quality of shipments out the door climbed from 97.5 percent to 99.5 percent • Throughput time, raw material to finished goods, reduced from 6weeks to 11/2 hours • Scrap reduced 30 percent • Flow distance cut from 650 feet to 30 feet Brothers' President Robert F. S. Wann, "We are commit­ • Work-in-process cost dollars cut from $145,000 to $39,000 ted to supporting the retraining and re-employment Set-up time: Before Aller effort with facilities, staffing and monetary support." To SliVcrosscut 45 minutes under 10 Clara Sheedy, the event planner, "These were the most Case 2.5 1.25 important presentations that I ever planned, because Label 60 minutes 5 they provided job opportunities for my fellow workers Bobst die cutter 21/2 hours. 11/4 hours. and friends - people I really cared about. The success Figure 1. of the outplacement program depended on the response from people invited to a seminar held in the midst of a - rather than volume. Team members concentrated difficult situation for all employees." on "fitness for use," making sure that anything they did Attendees included Parker Brothers suppliers, as could be passed on to the next worker ready to go. well as representatives of other local companies. Guests The organization was redesigned to encourage were treated to an early breakfast; each invitee left with more communication and build fleXibility. Order a goody bag of toys and games. administration personnel were still organized by What did prospective employees see and hear? regions, but to Donna that means that although One session included a presentation of results of world­ "Nancy is out today, and she supports Target (depart­ class manufacturing efforts (see Figure J), including ment stores), that doesn't mean it dies. We've cross­ machine operator Tippy Tircotte's wet board story. trained so when a customer calls - any customer ­ It seems that 30,000 sheets of cardboard were he gets an answer." being thrown out each month, totalling $7000.00. The The team coordinated all paperwork in one spot supplier shipped pallets of large cardboard sheets to be for inquiries. They felt they could get better at time cut into either covers or the bottom of boxes. When the management; by just handling a piece of paper once, sheets were strapped to a wooden skid, and skids were employees saved one hour per day. All employees were stacked, moisture from wood leaked into the cardboard. cross-trained to balance and redistribute workloads. Tippy's improvement team called the vendor and invit­ Toy customers are demanding more, and they are ed him to their daily meeting, where they explained stricter on cancellation dates when orders do not ship. how much material was being discarded. The team Target stores, for example, want all orders to ship in suggested adding a layer of plastic on the bottom and one week, complete; Walmart wants orders complete in top of the skid to keep moisture away from the board. 72 hours. The Parker Brothers team found that after Results? Waste dropped to fewer than one skid, or 40 their quality improvement project fixed bottlenecks sheets per month. and smoothed flows they were able to handle increased In the game board fabrication area, moving from business requirements with the same headcount. a twenty-step functional layout (see Figure 2), to a Processing time for 10,000 orders shipping to seven-step structured flow took a lot of waste out of 2500 stores in the old manual system would be one manufacturing and improved quality: month. ED! accelerated the process; paperless process­ Ths Whlts-Collal Factory ing takes 13 minutes. Donna Perry, customer service manager, Matching invoices to shipping documents explained the company's unique and very effective under the old system typically took three days for 2000 streamlining of the front-end of their order administra­ invoices manually processed by one person. As clerks tion process. Starting with a flow-chart that described were retrained in keyboarding they handled the same the typical order flow, the team redesigned the process, number of invoices in four hours through the ED! sys­ and their job responsibilities too (see Figures 3 and 4 tem. on page 25). Tlansition Csntsl The idea was to eliminate white collar waste ­ Laid off employees can use a transition center wasted time, rework, and duplicate paperwork - by jointly operated by the company and a nearby focusing on quality issues - "do it right the first time" employment group. (see Figure 5 on page 26.) Federal 23 July/AUgust 1992 Game Board Fabrication 20-Step Layout (Before) - 7-Step Layout (Aller) BEFORE recei~e move 10 machine Game law material ~~~ Cross Cutler ~~ Board I I I: ~~~ ~~ slom-warehouse biD Fabrication I Cross Cutter I 1li~\·~·:;;=c Func~~~a~t ="":r==='1 ~~~-i Cross Cutter l··~~ mo~e to Fabrication floor 1 inspect store on Iloor ~ ~ ~ i I,::='='''='':r"=1100='=I move to machine I move to machine I ~ ~8'\'. ~•• I ~ 'B rn ~ Gj\'. \'''' ~i:::::::\," ,.'+..' fWiPl~ I slore on floor I I inspect I ~ fWiPl w d.. : 8 L...::..J ~ \, : ~ I move 10 machine ~ move to warehouse ~..........------:,:--•••--".. .. ------: ,"p Iw;pl W ~ "'i"~,::T" ' li;lll1,"':,," I store-warehouse "'" .""" '('~-~G.itt. )" ~ji'=;'i(~I~'r''''''e-L...::..J__ ---I store on Iloor move 10 assembly AFTER receive loW material Game Board Fabrication 8 Slitler '110ve 10 maclline #. " ,c ). , Structured .............. Flow j "'"'~) I;;'" Co",, I" slit 1 , I .. cross cuI l.-J 1 I j- 1 "" I "1 : I 8,·....· E] label ·· . ~. J ::· . G :: Sillier move \0 assembly .~.."'" ) 1 I Cross Cutter r,( ,••"" L.abelsr ~ '1 . --------.-- .... E>. Sliner }. ~... "j Cross Culler 1"( " --....::::::::::::::: Figure 2. funds also have been made available for workers to be cation, training, and encouragement. The program trained in programs outside the center. Janice Dufresne, offers professional counseling, workforce marketing, director of human services, describes the novel retraining and other classes, and support services. approach, "What we had to do here was tum a negative Last year the company started an on-site literacy into the positive. In the business world, that's all we can program. Four teachers handle two sections of English do. Once we heard of the downsiZing, we put together a as a Second Language classes. All students follow an plan...." Results to date are encouraging; about 75 per­ individualized educational plan. cent of administrative personnel have taken new posi, Staff at the transition center also includes three tions. Sixty-five percent of .wage workers are re-skilling employees hired as peer counselors. Joanne Pinkham, a for different fields, or have found new jobs. 20-year assembler and ten-year group leader, said she The Transition Center helps "clients" identify their jumped at the chance to help her fellow workers through "customers," and skill needs, as well as providing edu- the transition. 24 Target Order Processing Map Before Simplification Orders... are submitted to Customer Services in avariety of ways Orders are telephoned to CSR D'IsregardSthree-part ---. Order is returned to Customer Services by completes construction - uses No I Yes Telephone Sales Reps, and/or single parts as one Customer Services InfOrmation I order form correct? customers. ~ pdrtforms Three-part forms ---. See detail 01 errors P.O Completed in field by (Part 1 retained in Cust.