Maynard Gets Results: Ashworth, Maynard Tee Up for Productivity Improvements

Ashworth, Inc. is a leading designer of men’s and women’s golf-inspired sportswear. The high quality apparel is distributed worldwide in golf pro shops, resorts and upscale department, specialty stores and corporate catalogs.

In response to continued growth, Ashworth was looking to improve operations and efficiencies in its distribution center. In particular, Ashworth’s management team believed the distribution center could benefit from consistent methods, leading to increased productivity.

With an upcoming move to a new distribution center, Ashworth wanted to prepare its employees for change and educate them in continuous improvement. The move to the new facility provided a perfect time to introduce improved work processes.

The assessment by H. B. Maynard and Company, Inc. discovered several improvement opportunities in the facility’s Fold and Bag, Scan and Box, and Embroidery areas.

Shooting Straight Down the Fairway: Project Goals

The improvement project had four major objectives:

• Improve output by 25 percent
• Reduce overtime costs
• Reduce the labor cost per unit
• Maintain or improve quality levels.

To help Ashworth meet these goals, Maynard provided the company with an employee communication plan and trained key teams of employees to develop and evaluate Best Methods and Engineered Standards. Ashworth then conducted meetings to address general employee concerns regarding the proposed changes. To further improve the flow of communication, monthly newsletters were distributed to employees to update them on the project’s progress. Ashworth management understood that employee buy-in would be essential to the project’s success. To facilitate employee involvement, the company created a communication board to educate employees on Best Methods and how their feedback and ideas were used to improve productivity.

“Best Methods forces you to look at the way you are doing your job, and challenges you to find a better way to do it.”

“Communication was a critical part of the program’s success,” said Jan Buettner, program manager at Ashworth. “Our employees speak a number of languages, so illustrations were an important component of the communications plan. Maynard’s ideas were vital in helping us demonstrate the value of Engineered Standards throughout our company. Standardization made everyone’s job easier.”

Making the MOST of It

To encourage employee involvement in the process improvements, Ashworth created several teams to work together on the project. In particular, the Ashworth Creative Team (A.C.T.) played a key role in creating Best Methods.

Comprised of corporate personnel, managers, floor supervisors and employees, the A.C.T. members identified opportunities to simplify work and reduce the time needed to perform operations. The A.C.T. developed an Idea Log to track all potential improvements.

Using the Maynard Operation Sequence Technique (MOST®) work measurement system, Ashworth gauged best method ideas to determine which methods were most efficient. By learning and applying Best Methods, Ashworth employees accomplished more work in the same amount of time in the Fold and Bag, Scan and Box, and Embroidery areas. The standardization of these methods provided a baseline for measuring performance, simplified the training process for new hires and eliminated inconsistent processes that reduced productivity.

Going for the Green: Employees Give Their Best Methods

In all three areas, many best methods ideas provided by Ashworth employees helped to increase efficiencies and improve productivity. Some examples:

• In the Embroidery area, work flow was improved by having operators remove garments from bags before the garments reached the embroidery operators. This increased the embroidery machines’ uptime by causing fewer delays.
• To improve consistency, machine speed times were standardized in the Embroidery area. This ensured consistent, quality output and provided machine operators with standardized goals.
• In the Fold and Bag area, a best method was developed to eliminate wasted motions in folding shirts. In addition, several changes were suggested for the folding station, providing workers with improved ergonomics to complete their tasks more efficiently.
• Operators in the Scan and Box area suggested several changes to improve their work stations, including a mounted scanning tool which minimized the need to reach to scan items. Other improvements included opening up the work space, positioning monitors at a height appropriate for all operators and adding a printer at scan stations to eliminate the need for replacement tags. These changes, while seemingly minor, played a significant role in improving productivity in the department.

“Best Methods forces you to look at the way you are doing your job, and challenges you to find a better way to do it,” Buettner said. “Our employees rose to the challenge.”

To communicate standardized work methods to employees, visual method sheets were created using StandardsPro® software. The sheets instruct employees on methods that are critical to maintaining desired quality levels. By using visual sheets, both English-speaking and non-English speaking employees could follow the methods.

Setting the Standards

With Best Methods in place, data was created to develop Engineered Standards. This involved measuring the amount of time it takes employees to complete a task, and using that data to create the standard.

In the Embroidery department, a top-down standard data approach was used to develop standards. This approach identifies the common elements performed in an operation and capitalizes on reusing those elements. It is the most cost-effective way to develop accurate standard data, as there is no need to measure each operation directly. This approach resulted in a fast and consistent application of data to set standards for the Embroidery area, and will serve as a framework for future work measurement. Standards were validated for accuracy by the A.C.T. members and Maynard consultants.

The 18th Hole: The Project Pays Off

To judge the success of the project, Ashworth monitored the change in units per operator hour. Cost per unit was also tracked using the average base rate for each department. Baselines for each area were established by collecting performance data from the start of the project to the beginning of Best Methods implementation.

In the Fold and Bag area for example, the baseline tracked in garments per operator hour rose dramatically. After implementing Best Methods and Workforce Training, the garments per operator hour increased by nearly 35 percent, decreasing labor costs by 27 percent. The results nearly doubled the project goal of a 20 percent increase in garments per operator hour. At the same time, the quality and consistency of the fold was raised across all stations.

In the Scan and Box area, output increased by 15 percent, decreasing labor costs by 15 percent. But that’s just scratching the surface. Based on the Engineered Standards developed during the project, the Scan and Box area has the potential of further increasing production by more than 30 percent. As employees become more familiar with the standards, Ashworth expects output in the Scan and Box area to continue to trend significantly upward.

The last area to develop Engineered Standards, the Embroidery division, expects units per operator hour and cost per embroidered unit to improve as supervisors reinforce Best Methods training and the use of job aids. Due to the variation of process run time for different embroidered logos, Ashworth expected a 10% improvement in the Embroidery area. As the training progressed, Ashworth has experienced up to a 20% productivity improvement.

The 19th Hole: What’s Next?

To continue to support its new culture, Ashworth began a corporate rewards program to recognize employees for their improvement ideas. The A.C.T. members also continue to meet to investigate possible improvement opportunities logged in the current Idea Log. Most importantly, with new standards and a new culture in place, Ashworth looks forward to increased productivity over the years.

“With Maynard’s help, we’ve not only improved productivity, but we’ve paved the way for further improvements when we enter our new distribution center,” Buettner said. “Our managers and employees have adapted well to the culture of change, and we are benefiting significantly as a result.”