When big ideas take root at Frito-Lay, it's fun to watch them grow, evolve and shape the company's culture. Recently, I've enjoyed watching how two long-standing programs at Frito-Lay –- Starfleet and servant leadership -- have merged into a whole new big idea with our Manufacturing teams. This big idea is called “Team 4ward,” and it’s already helping improve business results.
First to provide some background: Fifteen years ago, Dr. Dennis Heard, former Senior Vice President of Manufacturing Operations, launched a program to improve productivity and product quality in Manufacturing called Starfleet. It was designed to help identify the operational best practices in place at each of our plants, set goals for each of the plants to improve its site’s performance, and leverage experts to train employees on how to improve their site’s measures.
Al Carey, Frito-Lay's Chairman and CEO, introduced another big idea to all of Frito-Lay several years ago. The concept of servant leadership – in which the manager’s role is to support and empower his or her team by removing obstacles -– really resonated with employees across the organization.
This year, Leslie Starr Keating, our current Senior Vice President of Manufacturing Operations, and her team merged Starfleet and servant leadership to develop the Team 4ward program.
The basic concept behind Team 4ward is that when employees are passionate about a certain part of the business, they’ll embrace leadership to help drive results for their site. Plant technicians are encouraged to volunteer to lead a team at their site that focuses on the part of the business they are passionate about. The manager’s role as a servant leader is then to support each of the teams and make sure they have access to the information and resources they need to deliver results.
Each of the teams that support Team 4ward aligns with Frito-Lay's overall corporate strategy –- the commitment to our people, the planet, our partners and our products -- and focuses on specific areas for execution, like safety, water and electricity conservation, and diversity and inclusion.
"Starfleet is traditionally more of a top-down management approach, where experts from our Headquarters office provide support to the plants," Steve Sterling, a Vice President in Manufacturing who leads Team 4ward, told me. “However, Team 4ward enables productivity management to come from the plant floor-up, since servant leadership is also part of the program."
“Team 4ward has been in place for eight months now, and we’ve launched it at four plants. Our Headquarters-based teams helped shape and roll-out the program at each of the plants, but the technicians at the plants decide which projects to tackle based on the needs of their sites."
The West Valley, Utah, plant was one of the first to kick off Team 4ward at the beginning of this year, and I recently talked to Landon Farmer (pictured left), Technology Manager, who also supports the resource conservation team at his site. "Team 4ward works because it gives each team member on the floor a specific area of responsibility, gives the teams the autonomy to make decisions, and provides them with the tools they need to execute for improvement,” Landon told me.
Then he provided two examples of how his team is making a difference: “At the West Valley plant, one source of electricity usage is compressed air leakage. So the technicians decided to train all of the employees to fix the fittings and stop the leaks. When a line goes down, employees station themselves around the plant and listen for and fix any air leaks they find, on-the-spot. Since the team has been in place, one of our technicians has detected and repaired more air leaks that we even thought possible. The result is that we’ve reduced our electricity usage and costs significantly.”
"Additionally, the team that runs our potato chip manufacturing line began to monitor the water used to make the chips more carefully and frequently than ever before. As a result, our water use has also decreased significantly."
Team members from each of the plants regularly meet to share best practices, and plans are underway to expand Team 4ward to other plants. It will be interesting to watch the program’s evolution and to see what new big ideas emerge next. I have no doubt that the combined passion of our plant employees and the servant leadership management approach will take the Team 4ward program to new heights.
I think this was an excellent idea. Everything gets done better with teamwork. The final results can be awesome and you have proven that.
Posted by: Janet Morris | December 04, 2010 at 12:47 PM