Additional tools and strategies to support lean manufacturing and continuous improvement in a continuous roster manufacturing environment. An example from Norske Skog Tasman

Why do a lot off productivity improvements projects fail? Every improvement starts with a lot enthusiasm, most of the time generated by the project advisors. The momentum is still going after the advisors have collected their fees and left the building and the organisation has to do it on its own. According to McKinsey research organisational transformations are more likely to fail from this moment onwards (Fig. 1). The main outcome from the McKinsey research was that the behavioural effect was the main key reason for failing to deliver the intended outcomes. Most remarkable is the almost even split between management and employees. Also, Norske Skog was confronted with failing productivity improvement projects and was forced to rethink the way those projects were implemented. Norske Skog needed a different way to mitigate the possible risks, lacking enough support from management and dealing with employee resistance. In this article I will try to explain the methods Norske Skog Tasman has been using to implement Continuous Improvement projects on a sustainable way.