DMMI’s Central News SourceCORETH

E

Jishuken, Emergency Response Highlight Strong Partnership with Our Northern NeighborsJishuken: A Problem-Solving Kaizen Blitz

Our partners in the North, DENSO Manufacturing Canada (DMCN), threw open their doors for a thermal group improvement activity that made things clearer—literally.

“You can now see the entire Department at a glance,” said John Klassen, DMCN Operations Manager. “We eliminated finished goods inventory on the production floor by direct staging, so the view is no longer blocked by full racks of finished goods.”

In addition to direct staging in the warehouse, the DMCN team also highlighted several other improvements as part of their Excellent Factory activity. These efforts earned them recognition as the North American representative to the global EF Con-ference this spring.

The movement to direct staging certainly didn’t happen overnight. It has been the focus of several Excellent Factory competition genba reviews and a Toyota-supported jishuken activity that included representatives from many thermal group affiliates. A jishuken is a management-driven kaizen activity that identifies areas of improvement.

“This was the first time that TEMA (Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America) sponsored a jishuken outside of Japan, so we wanted to show our ap-preciation and support of the activity,” John said. “In-plant leaders led the activity, but management from throughout other thermal plants helped provide guidance and make observations that they could take back to their plants.”

The scope of the jishuken was huge, encompassing Molding, Assembly and Ware-house departments. They used a material information flow chart (MIFC) to examine

the value stream from shipping door to assembly line and beyond. John said the approach and thinking way of the Toyota facilitator was extremely valuable.

“We use TPS (Toyota Production System) tools at DENSO, but the jishuken application of the TPS tools was different than we were used to. A lot had to do with approach; they encouraged us to create a new reality. To think with the end in mind. And to have an ideal image to move toward that was able to drive us to continue to push and change the reality on the plant floor.”

The long-term benefit of cross-lining this and other EF-winning activity is a core DENSO value—doing more with less.

“Just like in Michigan and Arkansas, we have new business that is expanding the size of our department,” John said. “The direct staging and other EF activities allow us to keep less inventory on the floor and the elimination of racks means we have better visual management, so we can see and anticipate when we start to run behind.”

Through years of EF activity, DENSO had focused in on their ideal condition, but the jishuken moved them to make changes with visible impact. EF competition judges noted that a key reason for selecting DMCN was that they demonstrated a culture change. The kaizen has continued long after one EF genba review or the jishuken.

“We had implemented direct staging before the activity, but we didn’t realize the full benefit until we started the jishuken. It created standard work in the warehouse, and this is a best practice where all of DENSO can benefit—we are all warehousing in some way.” 

March 30, 2015

Tool & Die Team to the Rescue!At 7:53 a.m. on Monday, March 9, the email

arrived. “We will be in misshipment condition by Wednesday.”

Our partners to the north at DENSO Manufactur-ing Canada (DMCN) had a broken heater mold and a customer expecting a continuous supply of their finished products for new car production.

The thermal group Tool & Die Department here in Battle Creek sprang into action.

By 10 p.m. that evening, the DMMI team had disassembled a similar tool, modified three parts for repair and shut the door on an expedited truck that reached DMCN at 4:30 a.m. With quick work from the DMCN team to complete the repairs, the first shot out of the repaired mold happened at 10:30 a.m.

“We are the tooling group for all of TAC,” said Jake Williams, Advanced Mold & Die Engineer. “DMCN has a really great group, very capable of handling most issues, but we have the responsibility and the resources to pull solutions together in an emergency case like this.”

Thanks to cross-country communication and team-work, the situation did not impact the customer.

“Tool & Die has hot jobs every day between Arkan-sas, Mexico, Canada and Michigan, but when it comes to shipping condition and safety issues, that’s always where we look first,” said Dave Ball, Tool & Die Plant Engineering Section Leader. “This is an instance where strong working relationships really paid off and we got a difficult job done without any customer disrup-tion.” 

What’s Up Calendar subject to change.

TUE March 31Miller College Visit: 11a-1p, Dining Center

WED April 1$10 Haircuts: 11a-5p, Assoc Service Center

THU April 2Retirement Party for Denis Vosburg: 2p in Dining Center

Before

After

The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has honored DENSO Manufacturing Michigan, Inc. (DMMI) as a Michigan Environmental Leader, citing

our outstanding, voluntary environmental stewardship.

DMMI is among the first 20 facilities to receive this honor, and the only Battle Creek business selected.

“Our involvement as a Clean Corporate Citizen (CCC) and a Michigan Business Pollution Prevention Partner since 1998 really led to this honor,” said Dave Mayfield, Advanced Environmental Engi-neer. “The State brought a group of us together to talk about ways to recognize people that go above and beyond the CCC responsibilities and reach out into the community to help and guide others. That led to the development of this new program and us being a part of the pilot group.”

The Environmental Leaders program recognizes environmental achieve-ment at Michigan facilities. Qualifying companies demonstrate sound

environmental stewardship, community partnering and mentoring.

The principles that set Environmental Leaders apart is the accom-plishments of their mentoring efforts, such as providing assistance or guidance to suppliers or customers and encouraging interaction between company environmental professionals and local college and high school students.

Another critical component of the Environmental Leaders program is having a strong compliance history with a proven track record of success.

Have news? Then please send an email to DMMI_communications@denso-diam.com or call a Communication Support staff member:We’ll then decide the best way to deliver the information (Core, TV, Exchange, intranet, etc.). We also reserve the right to edit for conciseness and length.

Editor / WriterSarah Frink (x8711)

Editor / WriterNatalie Scott (x1564)

Layout / WriterKathy Master (x8712)

Photographer / WriterMatt Burton (x8713)

Miriam Sundalius Director, Quality

How long at DENSO? 27 years

Walk us through your career path. My first job has always been as a Mom. I stayed home with my children until my youngest daughter turned two. I started working at Goodyear in quality engineering and quality training and spent a few years there before I joined DENSO in 1988. We were called Nippon-denso back then. So for the last 27 years, I’ve worked in just about every area in Quality.

Early in my career, I was responsible for Diamond Star Motors, a joint venture between Mitsubishi and Chrysler. I am proud to be part of the group that developed the standards, rules and auditing procedures for our QS9000 certification, which later became TS 16949. And as DENSO grew over time, quality was divided into sections so we could focus on different areas like new product introductions, mass produc-tion and warranty in addition to working with customers on the day-to-day issues.

What do you do? That’s the fortunate part of Quality. There’s rarely a day that’s repetitive. My current focus is Warranty. I work with the problems that occur in vehicles after they are sold to the final customer. The Warranty group is one that is truly a function with responsibility for all of our North American thermal products. Regardless where they’re made, we investigate all TAC war-ranty claims here in Battle Creek.

I spend a lot of time in polite disagreement with people as well. That’s a nice way of saying that I get screamed at on the phone a lot.

What’s the most interesting part of your job? We joke that the warranty job is like CSI. We never get all the information and we have to figure out what happened from the evidence.

Talk about how a DENSO colleague or mentor has influenced your career. Sherman Kawaguchi was a coordinator at DMMI when I started. He taught me about our parts, problem solving and how to make a presentation. What I learned from him is that a report has to be visual. Pictures, not words. Especially in a global, dual-language company like DENSO.

I still have one of Sherman’s hand-written presentations about Quality Systems. He knew how to tell a story with almost no words.

What important lesson(s) have you learned in your career at DENSO? There is no “my” job or responsibility. We must work to-gether to get the job done. When people start placing blame or pointing fingers, we are quickly moving farther away from a solution. Teamwork must come first. We can argue over whose fault it is later.

What advice would you give to an associate who wants to advance their career—either through a management path or just as an indi-vidual contributor? Understand what we make and sell.

Learn how to effectively communicate what you want people to know. And remember that words are not always the best way to do that.

Finally, you can’t be afraid to jump in and do something. It may be someone else’s responsibility to finish, but you have to be a part of creating that solution.

What is your fantasy job? An artist. I like to paint with watercolors and oils, make clay figurines and quilt.

What do you like to do outside of work? When the weather is nice, I take three bicycle rides a week. Anywhere between 12 and 20 miles each ride. I also like to visit with my grandsons (ages 6 and 2), travel, and do various arts projects.

Tell us something that people may not know about you. I have been do-ing engineering work for 30 years, but my degree is in Accounting. And I grew up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. My father was an auto mechanic, and believed everyone needed to know how to fix their own cars. Taking apart a carburetor or rebuilding an engine was something fun we did together.

Meet Your Management

DMMI Named One of 20 Michigan Environmental Leaders by DEQ

Congratulations to two associates retiring after 24 years at DMMI:

Denis Vosburg retires on April 2. He began working at DMMI on November 18, 1991.Kathy Master also retires on April 2. She began working at DMMI on November 25, 1991.

Kudos &Congrats …