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Tips Of The Trade: Kaizen (Continuous Improvement) – It’s All...

Many business owners try to implement a lean culture to gain efficiencies throughout their company but fail because they struggle to get the buy-in from their employees. You can’t just wave a magic wand and decide one day you’re going to become a lean organization. It takes planning and focus. While the effort must be directed from the top of the organization, you must utilize your most valuable asset to gain the momentum needed for lasting change – your people. Don’t underestimate the knowledge your employees possess. An effective kaizen event will tap into this knowledge by having a cross…

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We’re Listening

We know that feedback is one of the essential elements to good communication, so this week at L.E. Smith we took a survey amongst our associates about communication.  We wanted to know how well we communicate within departments, and externally across all departments, and more importantly, how could we improve communication? We wanted to let our associates know that we’re listening to their input, and we believe the results  will help us to continue to improve our already great team. “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” – George Bernard Shaw

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L. E. Smith From A To Z

In the past 12 months, 17 new associates joined the L.E. Smith family.  As part of their ongoing training, they took part in an in depth, step by step tour of the entire countertop order process.  They spent time in the client services office learning about how a custom order is received, entered, configured, tracked, and scheduled for fabrication.  They then took an extensive shop tour learning everything from the receiving and storage of materials, to making cores, running cores and laminate through the post-forming machine, making cuts at the saws, and all of the intricate custom countertop fabrication options…

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Even Better

A team of 12 skilled associates came together this week to use their various roles and previous knowledge to further improve the Board, Laminate, & Core Storage areas.  This was the 12th such event, aptly named Kaizen #12, and was part of L.E. Smith’s commitment to implementing continuous improvement strategies.  Kaizen #12 kicked off on Tuesday January 4th with a detailed planning and goal setting session.  The team worked together to focus on 5S (another lean manufacturing philosophy,) plant layout, and visual management opportunities.  The end result was streamlined, consolidated, cleaner, and more organized storage area.  It might’ve been good…

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