Process Improvement However, automotive or other “high-volume” industries are
not as predictable as one might think. “When I worked at Cummins,” Warren said, “even when
we built 800 engines a day, we dealt with about 10,000 per- mutations—different sizes, families, or optional turbocharg- ers.” Tis gave Warren lessons and experience applicable to a variety of industries, including the cyclic, oſten unpredictable world of oil & gas. “It is still manufacturing bits and pieces, with people still putting things together, finding problems, and solving them,” he remarked. It is these aspects of the industry, Warren (and many other
experts) holds, that make lean just as applicable to oil & gas as it is to other areas of manufacturing. Te key is what lessons from lean to emphasize, he be-
lieves. Problem solving, who does it, when, and how, forms the core of his consulting philosophy. In any industry, whether oil & gas or any other, he pointed out that it is easy to be mesmerized by the tools and instruments of lean thinking. Tese include kanbans, kaizen events, and 5S. “As an engineer, like I am, you like the bells and whistles and get focused on them,” he explained. “But over time you begin to realize it is more about behaviors. Te tools are a requirement, but you have to grow people and build habits.” Tese include habits of self-reliance, problem solving, and, for managers, how to coach and develop talent. Oſten, companies train profession- als for certification in lean and Six Sigma, apply the tools, and get results that “look pretty,” as he put it. “But they don’t get the outcomes they should. It does not stick, and they know it,” he said. Why? Because lean transformations are really about behaviors driving use of the tools. He makes the iceberg anal- ogy, where the tools are the 1/8th of the iceberg visible above the water. Te crucial 7/8th is below the water—these are the invisible behaviors of coaching, employee empowerment, and problem solving.
Adaptive Lean for Oil and Gas Franck Vermet, Testing and Subsea Manufacturing Man-
ager for Schlumberger, (Rosharon, TX), agreed there are oſten problems with lean adoption. “Many companies struggle to implement lean,” he said. Tere is data from a survey conduct- ed in 2007 by IndustryWeek that showed 74% of respondents had made little or no progress in their lean implementations, 24% made significant progress, and only 2% achieved world- class improvement.” Vermet pointed out that, on the surface, lean facilities look
very nice—but how you link that with actual performance is difficult to ascertain. He also agrees that lean programs are difficult to sustain over time. Along with Warren from Tesla2, Vermet developed a
unique, trademarked Adaptive Lean Framework for use by Schlumberger. “Sometimes the simplest methods are the best,” Vermet said. A happy workforce is one simple idea difficult
38 Energy Manufacturing 2013
to achieve. “You would wish that workers feel and are fully empowered,” he explained, “but I have not observed this oſten. We felt this was a key element in our development” of the Adaptive Lean Framework, which was developed to apply lean to high-mix, low-volume applications. “Te provocative message I would like to get across is that
the practical solution is to create happy employees,” he stated. Making employees happy starts with creating organizational energy—defining purpose, beliefs and leadership principles. Tese are the foundations, or the part of the iceberg below the surface, that lead to enhanced performance. “When you have organizational energy, only then can you structure processes and stabilize them,” he explained. Once stable, processes are improved using a variety of familiar techniques, as reactive and proactive feedback loops, according to Vermet. “Aſter that, implementing solutions is the next key step, and
ties back to employee empowerment,” he said. For instance, there is the theoretical way—open a lean book and take out all the standard solutions (think kanban or 5S) and push those solutions to people. “Or, you can do the practical thing and develop happy employees. Empowered employees will pull practical solutions from the theoretical tools available, and they will implement those solutions by themselves,” he said. Like any good process improvement program, Schlum-
berger used metrics to measure progress. “We used weeks of orders on backlog. We started with about a year’s worth of backlog [52 weeks] and reduced that to one week of backlog during an 18 month improvement program,” he said.
Diverse Industry, Diverse Solutions Aſter initially consulting in applying lean principles with
oil & gas companies that developed wells, John de Wardt of De Wardt and Co. (Steamboat Springs, CO) added equipment manufacturers to his client list. “Te issue is that the industry is both cyclic and fragmented,” he said. “We do have some big players, such as Schlumberger or NOV [National Oilwell Varco], but also a lot of small players.” Tese smaller players can arise abruptly when the business booms, and disappear just as quickly when the market declines. As a result, manufacturers in oil & gas have a broad range
of capabilities and a broad range of strengths as well. “Tere are some who are quite well organized, and others you can see when you walk into their facilities they are highly disorga- nized, they have not even thought about it,” de Wardt related. Te cyclic nature of the business means some companies ei-
ther do not have the time to apply lean when struggling to meet demand, or cannot afford it when demand slackens, according to de Wardt. Te smaller shops also refurbish used equipment as maintenance and repair organizations as well as make origi- nal equipment, further complicating matters. Tese are practical professionals, struggling through one end of a cycle or another. “Many of these companies are not ready for a theoretical ap-
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