Lean lessons from the front lines of industry

Ann Arbor, MI - Industry Advisory Board member Brian Tauber met with students as part of the Leadership Speaker Series, sharing Lean lessons he learned as the owner and CEO of CPP Global.

Brian credits his company’s Lean journey for taking them from the brink of failure to a successful sale. He shared specifics of his company's remarkable transformation with students, including the financial, personnel, and personal considerations that made the journey painful at times - and ultimately extremely rewarding.

Here are some insights Brian shared:

 

On culture:
While the kaizen events created a lot of operational improvements, they were far more important from a cultural perspective. You have to get people to events, because that’s where they learn about Lean and execute Lean all in one week.
They come out as pros. They won’t see the world the same anymore. They now see waste in everything.
On commitment:
We took our two most promising young engineers out of their jobs and made them Lean leaders.
We’re bleeding money and I’m creating a new department with two of our best people. That’s commitment.
On ownership:
For the first year and a half, nearly every report out included someone crying – including our executives. It was so intense because they did not know they could accomplish what they accomplished during that week….
Whenever I asked, what did we do right?
Every time the same word came up: ownership.
On Respect:
Hopefully this will help you as you go out there better understand not just the tools – which are critical – but the people, the respect for people which was so key to what we did.

Brian's "You must watch and read!" List:

Brian Tauber shared works that provide him with inspiration, strengthen his leadership skills, and help him to laugh every day:

  • Admiral William McRaven | University of Texas Commencement Speech
  • Dr. Rick Rigsby | Cal Maritime Commencement Speech
  • Bruce Turkel | All About Them
  • L. David Marquet | Turn the Ship Around
  • Chris McChesney, Jim Huling, and Sean Covey | The Four Disciplines of Execution
  • Robin Williams | The Invention of Golf

The Tauber Institute for Global Operations is a joint venture between the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and Michigan Engineering, working together with industry partners to facilitate cross-disciplinary education in global operations management. The Tauber Institute is an inaugural recipient of the UPS George D. Smith Prize for effective and innovative preparation of students to be good practitioners of operations research, management science, or analytics. For more information visit tauber.umich.edu.