PiT-Stop®

Just Do It
Published in GEA LIFE … Staff Magazine 05 November 2008

“You have to fix the fence to keep the chickens from escaping!” “But I don’t have time. I have to catch the chickens!” Canadian Bernie Sander from Innovation Transfer Inc. uses examples like this to show what it’s all about for him: making improvements where the shoe pinches. The GEA Thermal Engineering Division invited him to a workshop in August - expanding its Ideas and Improvement Management tools.

When the man with the orange suspenders presented his PiT-Stop method (Problem Finding, Structuring and Solving in Teams) at GEA Luftkuehler GmbH in Herne, Germany, he first made three promises: three suggestions for improvement per employee, potential savings of 100,000 Euros per interview day, and a cost/benefit ratio of 1:20 for three days. The two controllers at GEA Luftkühler GmbH, Nina Wonning and Manuel Sanchez-Bravo, verified the plausibility of the expected savings.

Taking the Initiative
“Unlike other improvement management approaches, we go right to the people and collect their ideas”, said Sander. According to him, this keeps companies from having to rely on employees taking the initiative to make suggestions. This leads to better results since the employees are the ones who know their jobs best”, said Sander. And this is where PiT-Stop interfaces with the Ideas and Improvement Management philosophy – it serves as an additional tool for contributing to Ideas and Improvement Management’s success.

Two GEA employees trained by Sander interview a co-worker. While one speaks, the other listens and takes notes. According to Sander, “there’s a reason God gave us two ears and only one mouth.” And the employees have plenty to share with their interviewers. One of the interviewees was Mustafa Ozkan, who processes the welded seams on the meter-high desublimators. “If we had more movable lift trucks, we wouldn’t have to constantly rebuild the platform. That would save at least 14 hours a month”, he recommended. Desublimator Design Engineer Christoph Drassner came prepared and wrote down six problems and possible solutions – including such solutions as having employees trade jobs to gain a different perspective and prevent misunderstandings.

Open Criticism demonstrates Confidence
The call for suggestions is not new, but before Ideas and Improvement Management was established, the way ideas were processed was not always transparent. Because of this, a few employees were hesitant at first when answering the interview questions. This is not an exception, which is why Sander is correct when he says that the greatest demonstration of an employee’s conficence is to share criticism without the protection of anonymity. Skepticism is like a challenge to the GEA Group to make sure that the employee’s recommendations are implemented. And this is Sander’s goal. Once the ideas were gathered, they were grouped and handed over to designated employees. After all the interviews were completed, 248 ideas were posted on bulletin boards and the wall. Dr. Helmut Schmale and his future successor as President of the Thermal Engineering Division, Joerg Jeliniewski, as well as Managing Director at GEA Luftkuehler GmbH, Weidong Xu, were impressed and self-critical. “The range of suggestions is enormous, and we have to look at ourselves, too – starting with me up at the top”, said Schmale.

A Pilot Project of the Thermal Engineering Division
The idea for the workshop came from Idea Manager Florian Gomm from the Thermal Engineering Division, who contacted Sander. Pit-Stop was carried out as a pilot project by his division and will soon also be implemented in other divisions. A few ‘spies’ from other GEA companies, like Istvan Kovacsics from GEA EGI Zrt., also participated. “Perhaps we can use PiT-Stop to get the Ideas and Improvement Management process up and running in Hungary”, said Kovacics. Dr. Andreas Risch, Head of Ideas and Improvement Management for the GEA Group, would like the participating managers to get the ball rolling and take the initiative to request and implement their employees’ ideas in the future. According to Risch, this is the only way to tap into the potential in the employees’ heads to make lasting improvements in the company.
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