ABOUT CAMPBELL SCIENTIFIC:
Campbell Scientific Inc. was organized in 1974 by Eric and Evan Campbell and is located in a 100,000 square foot facility in Logan, Utah with 170 employees. They manufacture measurement and control products for long-term monitoring. They produce dataloggers and data acquisition systems, measurement and control peripherals, communications equipment, and sensors, which are used for climate monitoring, water quality, mining, landfills, vehicle testing, railway, bridge and dam monitoring, and wind assessment. Their customers have included the military, agricultural researchers, weather stations, and atmospheric laboratories.
Situation:
Campbell Scientific wanted more motivation to help drive changes into their business. In their words, “We needed motivation to get our production supervisors thinking about the importance of continuous improvement. We wanted them to know that they have power to create change within the company and that they can make a difference to the company’s bottom line. We wanted to get rid of the saying, “Because that’s the way we’ve always done it,” and change it to, “We CAN make this better and more efficiently.”
Solution:
Campbell took part in the World Class Transformation course through the MEP Utah, a NIST MEP affiliate. They were given instructions and guidelines to be able to accomplish improvement projects in four separate areas—Lean Implementation, A-3 Problem Solving, Root Cause Analysis, and the 5 Whys. As part of the course, there were specific projects due each week. In addition, they were required to follow up with Utah MEP to ensure that projects were completed as planned. In A3 Problem Solving, employees were taught how to identify the current state by telling a story. It’s similar to laying out a visual representation of the problem and the solution. In the Five Whys, employees focus on getting to the root cause of the problem and are able to make better educated decisions on how things should and can be improved. Campbell found that with the hands-on approach, their projects fueled energy and excitement to the supervisors. This created an atmosphere of motivation which flowed to the employees. Campbell reports, “We quickly saw drive and motivation to make things better from all production employees.”
Results:
- Roughly $80,000 of savings in six months
- $15,000 invested back into workforce practices
- $25,000 invested in other areas because of the positive changes made
