Committed to TWI
Trane Company’s Pueblo facility has whole-heartedly embraced TWI to spearhead their continuous improvement efforts. Trane Company is an international company with manufacturing facilities around the world. Trane’s Pueblo facility has over 500 workers dedicated to the manufacture and sale of water chillers for air conditioning units in large facilities. It is essential to maintain a high level of productivity with few defects to produce the large volumes of water chillers they ship every day.
Trane’s Pueblo facility has utilized continuous improvement methodologies, such as Lean and Six Sigma, for years. However, Trane noticed that after each continuous improvement event, productivity would be up and defects would be down for a while, and then the improvement gains would start to erode. They needed something more to make it stick. Enter Training Within Industry Job Instructions.
Training Within Industry (TWI) consists of standardized programs that teach the essential skills needed by all people responsible for the work of others, regardless of their industry. Job Instruction Training (JI) teaches supervisors how to quickly train employees to do the job correctly, safely, and conscientiously resulting in less scrap and rework, fewer accidents, and less tool and equipment damage.
Trane had worked with CAMT’s partner Pueblo Community College (PCC) for years to technically train workers. PCC introduced Trane to the Colorado Association for Manufacturing and Technology (CAMT) who helped bring TWI courses onsite through the Colorado First Grant.
CAMT conducted a week-long Job Instructions training for ten production supervisors. Using the TWI “Train and Do” methodology, each day started with two hours of instruction, and the supervisors could immediately implement what they learned that day. After that initial week of training, the Trane Company proceeded to indoctrinate many more employees in the TWI Job Instructions methodology.
In their large water chiller line, Trane has greatly reduced its training time, scrap and rework, and resolved many of their quality issues, strongly affecting their bottom line. Productivity, measured by their build rate, has increased by 40% over the last nine months with no additional personnel. Their ability to deliver their product on time has increased, and through the economic downturn Trane held onto their 45% market share.
TWI has now trained 70+ production supervisors and workers in one of their three primary product lines. Satisfied that they have achieved a truly standardized job training process for one line, Trane is now implementing TWI in the rest of its facility, including office areas. Pueblo’s enthusiasm for TWI is even spreading to other Trane facilities. Two facilities in the Southern United States are embarking on their own TWI program, and they’re looking to Pueblo to help.
“Using TWI to standardize our training techniques has enabled Trane to significantly improve throughput and quality, exceeding customer expectations of quality and on-time delivery. ” – Art Shinn, Manager of Training and Development
Results:
- Build rate has increased 40% over the last 9 months with no additional personnel
- Rework and scrap reduced by 80%
- Retained Sales - $10M
- Employees Retained - 10
- Cost Savings - $500,000