A Day in the Lean Journey
Fountain Powerboats Pick Up Lean Speed

By Jane Albright

A true lean transformation doesn't happen in a day. It takes consistent, persistent willingness to change and improve. Fountain Powerboats in Washington, NC, can now make one of their famous boats in three days when it used to take five days. The change didn't come easily and it took more than a day, but here is a typical day on that journey…

The group of jean-clad managers huddled together in the parking lot outside Fountain Powerboats on a breezy fall morning. The workday had started hours ago and problems had developed. They needed to talk outside, away from the employees inside, who were building some of the fastest boats on water. The managers needed guidance, and leaned toward Sam MacPherson, the IES lean specialist standing in the middle of the huddle.

"You don't take problems to the leadership," he told them. "You take solutions."

Morning

So began another lesson in the philosophy of lean manufacturing. Problems are handled as they occur, when they occur, by the people doing the work. Some of the employees were blossoming, showing leadership and capabilities unknown before. Other employees still looked to management to make most decisions.

This latest lean event had started on a Monday, and now it's Thursday morning. Visible progress had been made, but the hours had been long. David Knight, president of Fountain Powerboats, led the leadership team that had set ambitious, yet reachable goals: to increase the gross margin from approximately 18 percent to 25 percent by reducing the time it takes to build a boat from 250 hours to a potential120 hours. Or, it should be done in three days, not five days, without overtime and while maintaining the highest quality.

This one day was many in a long-term commitment to lean, Knight said.

Fountain Powerboats is a publicly-traded, leading manufacturer of high performance fishing boats, express cruisers and sport boats that are sold around the world. Net sales for fiscal year 2006 were $79.2 million. The 65-acre site on the Pamlico River currently has 12 buildings where 45 boats are in various stages of construction by 430 employees.

Static Station

Fountain makes its fleet of power boats one at a time by a team at a static station, not in an assembly line, which is the basis of most lean manufacturing. Managers spent hours watching and timing the building sequence to determine the most efficient order. Supplies were rearranged and only what was needed for the next couple of hours was brought to a station. This discouraged one team "borrowing" from another team. A tool kit was brought on board for the team to use instead of relying on their personal tools.

Beside each station stood a new yamazumi board, a four-sided kiosk that visually and colorfully shows who is working on the boat and at what stage they are in the boat-building process.

The Fountain leadership team had already gone through the first of the four stages of
leader kaizen, which begins with standard work analysis. They ran a paper kaizen from observations against goals and objectives. They conducted a mock-up of potential solutions. Finally, they had reached the delivery phase of the plan-do-check-act cycle, which then documents, standardizes and works out the bugs.

This week, they had reached gemba kaizen, the solving of problems on the floor. The team building the boat reviews business goals daily. "Where people fail in lean," MacPherson said, "is they do the what and the how, but they never understand the why." It takes confidence to change things.

Afternoon

After lunch, the teams in the gemba kaizen gathered in the now empty eating area to compare notes and share their progress with managers.

Team leader Eric Toften, a Fountain employee for 11 years, stood before the group and read from his clipboard. He praised the new "crane" the team had made to get material on the boat. He emphasized that his team shouldn't be building parts, but that parts should come to the team ready for installation. Several heads nodded in agreement. "Boats are not the only thing that requires innovation, it's the tools," he said.

Eighteen major issues have been resolved this week, Toften said, "not planned to be resolved, but thought out and resolved." Another five problems have been tagged for elimination later.

Team leader Jessie Whitaker reported that boats are going out quicker. "When my team has a problem, we bring it up that day, and by noon it has probably been solved. We see the change in the next boat, and by the third boat we see the changes have been made."

After listening to the team reports, human resources manager Carol Price said she has a greater appreciation for floor employees. "The people who build the boats know what needs to be done first," she said. "I'm more excited about where we go next. It's been a tough struggle… but at the end we will have a better quality of life."

Do It Yourself

Marty Boosinger, vice president of quality, has seen several management initiatives come and go over his 22 years, including a brief stint with lean. All had been personality-driven, he said, and when those enablers left, the initiatives died away. "Now we know the only way to understand it is to do it yourself," he said.

"Floor personnel have bought into it," Toften said. "It's more of a system than a management dictate, which is one of the failures of the other systems."

Late that afternoon, Fountain president David Knight sat behind his desk in an office filled with trophies and press clippings from his boat racing career. Knight has worked at Fountain for two years, but has been racing Fountain boats for 17 years. He brought decades of business acumen to the position, including an appreciation for what can be accomplished with lean manufacturing.

"I relate to Sam (MacPherson) and his approach," Knight said. "Mr. Fountain relates to Sam, so we have 100 percent support from the leadership." He admits to being a bit impatient to see the results that the paper kaizen said were possible.

A Lean Legacy

At that moment, Reggie Fountain entered the office. While his business card says "test driver," the founder of Fountain Powerboats is unmistakable dressed in his trademark black. He wants Fountain Powerboats, which he started in 1979, to outlive him. Lean manufacturing will help.

"We are not in this for the short haul," he said. "We are prepared to see it through."

As the shadows of the colorful flags on the grounds lengthened at the end of the day, Fountain took a boat out on the Pamlico River for a test drive. The lean boat-building teams continued to work through problems past quitting time.

Tomorrow, and for weeks to come, the employees of Fountain Powerboats will continue to grow lean.

Just a few weeks later, the goal of making a boat in three days was reached. But the lean transformation continues as Fountain Powerboats seeks more efficiency.

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