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For three days in May, teams from around the world gathered in The Woodlands, Texas, (outside of Houston) to share their continuous improvement successes and compete for top honors at the Dover Kaizen Fair.

Each year, Continuous Improvement (CI) teams from each Dover operating company submit A3s representing their best use of the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) process; teams showcase root cause discovery and the permanent resolution to an identified problem in their respective work areas. Finalists are invited to competitively present their PDCA process at the Kaizen Fair. The May 22-24, 2017, event was Dover Corporation’s 6th annual Continuous Improvement Conference and Kaizen Fair and attended by nearly 600 Dover employees.

The use of the PDCA method and A3 format has become a standard work process for Dover companies in their ongoing effort to promote a CI culture. This year, the Waukesha Bearings team from Glasgow placed second for its approach and resolution to an on-time delivery (OTD) concern in one of the facility’s main value streams. The team, made up of Production Manager Kenny Frew, Lean Coordinator Bryan Connor, and Machine Operators David Wilson and Jamie Haggart, and supported by Lean Master Black Belt John Rush, applied its knowledge of CI tools and techniques to reduce machine setup time by 86%. This led to a reduction in lead time and within three months the Value Stream was hitting and sustaining its OTD target of 95%.

The Glasgow site is entering only the third year of its CI journey, and this is a remarkable milestone. The team was able to articulate its use of the PDCA methodology at the Kaizen Fair and ran Shingo Prize winning company US Synthetics a close second.