2010 Virginia Forum for Excellence

Join Us for the 28th Annual Virginia Forum for Excellence presented by the United States Senate Productivity and Quality Award Program for Virginia. This year’s theme is “The Upside of the Downturn: Sharing Best Practices to Move Ahead.” Come, learn and participate in discussions around how high performance organizations use the nation's Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence to move up during downturns.

Start with attending one of our pre-Forum workshops on September 14. Then join us for the Forum kick-off at the early evening networking reception with our Sponsors, Examiners and Partners

On the 15th, help us welcome John Fitzgerald, CEO of INOVA Fair Oaks Hospital a 2006 VA SPQA Medallion winner. Attend incredible workshops. Have lunch with your new friends; hear from our featured and nationally acclaimed speaker, Larry Potterfield, CEO of MidwayUSA, a 2009 Baldrige Award winner. Then join Virginia's LT Governor, Bill Bolling and Bernie Niemeier, Publisher of Virginia Business Magazine for the Awards ceremony as we recognize the 2010 Program participants.

The Virginia Forum for Excellence is a great networking opportunity to meet individuals interested in performance excellence. Visit with individuals from the education, government, service, manufacturing, healthcare, and non-profit communities and learn just how solutions apply to all.

ASTD Recognizes TMG, Inc. and Ball Corporation - Metal Beverage Packaging Division Williamsburg, with Excellence in Practice Award for Performance Improvement

The ASTD Board of Directors will honor TMG, Inc. and Ball Corporation - Metal Beverage Packing Division at an awards ceremony Monday, May 17, 2010, in Chicago during ASTD's International Conference & Exposition.  The ASTD awards program recognizes exemplary practices in workplace learning and performance and shares the learning of the winners worldwide.  Award winners will be invited to discuss their practices at the Awards Fair during the conference.  The winning practices will be featured in a booklet distributed at the conference and posted on the ASTD website. This year, 131 companies completed the stringent application process, with only 21 practices receiving the prestigious ASTD Award.

Background Information
Ball Metal Container Operations of Williamsburg, Virginia began their partnership with TMG, Inc. in May of 2007.  The Management Team in Williamsburg recognized the need for a comprehensive intervention to prepare for the upcoming wave of retirements and resulting leader churn projected within the next five years. This approaching turnover coupled with an opportunity for improved performance from current Supervisors and Chief Maintainers generated the need for a well developed plan to train current leaders, identify and develop future leaders, transfer knowledge to newer employees and cultivate a highly engaged workforce.  The underlying hypothesis that has guided this initiative is that an aligned team with well trained leaders will result in an engaged workforce generating improved business performance.  

Executive Summary
In May 2007, the leadership team of a manufacturing plant recognized some disconcerting workforce and production trends with serious impacts for the future of their business, including decreased production results, increased employee disengagement, poor leader performance, and increased turnover due to an aging workforce.  After a detailed analysis, the senior leadership made a long-term commitment to design, build, pilot, and implement a system to attack these trends.  Within 12-months, the plant developed a synchronized and integrated Leader Performance Improvement System consisting of:  Individual Development Plans for plant leaders based upon High Performance Behaviors; implementation of a Chief Maintainer Training Program; completed five rounds of structured Leader Coaching; deployed a Leader to Led Promise aligning the organization and explaining roles and responsibilities from the new employee to the plant manager, completely re-organized the workforce to break up dysfunctional teams and "shock" the non-performing culture; developed a Team Scorecard to communicate daily performance goals; conducted annual plant-wide Value Stream Analysis to prioritize process improvement projects to remove barriers to daily job performance; and developed a substitute leader qualification system to reduce daily disruption caused by leader churn.   Through careful, measured program management, these trends have reversed and plant performance continues to improve.  Since June, 2008 the plant has realized a return on the investment of over $4,100,000 by increasing production by 84,000,000 units over the previous 12 months, while decreasing spoilage by over 24.5% and improving customer complaints by 50.4% from the previous year.

Plant Still Showing Signs of Continuous Improvement
 Ball Metal's Leader Performance Improvement Program has successfully stabilized production operations and the plant continues to raise the bar.  Ball Williamsburg met or exceeded their production goals over 66% of the time in 2009 and made over 2.77 billion cans while reducing spoilage by over 15%.  Plant-wide employee engagement levels and advancement desires both reached new heights over the last 12 months.  Further, the third annual Employee Engagement Assessment enjoyed participation from over 90% of plant employees.  One of the plant's proudest accomplishments was the announcement that Williamsburg had received Ball Corporation's Presidential Safety Award for going over 365 days without a single lost time accident.  As trust within the organization grows, the plant plans to place a renewed emphasis on Continuous Improvement and the application of Lean Manufacturing principals in 2010.