ORG 535 Week 4 Teams and Synergy Example

From Forty-Five Minutes to Twenty: Building a Cross-Shift Team That Produces More Than Its Members Could Alone

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

ORG/535: People and Organizations

Week 4 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The plant, the team, its members and its results are composites written for a model paper.

Changing a packaging line from one product to another, a different bag size, film or seasoning, takes about 45 minutes at the composite Ohio food packaging plant I manage. With about six changeovers per line per day across 14 lines, changeovers consume about 63 line hours a day, the plant's largest loss of capacity. Each shift does changeovers its own way, and the best crews take half as long as the worst. No single person knew how to fix this, so I formed a team. This paper analyzes how the team was designed and why it succeeded where earlier efforts had not.

Why a Team and Not a Group

A group may simply interact; a team shares a common goal, depends on members' combined work and holds itself mutually accountable. Previous attempts to cut changeover time gave the task to an engineer who wrote a procedure that operators largely ignored. Changeover knowledge was spread out: operators knew which adjustments took longest, mechanics knew which tools and parts were missing, quality technicians knew which checks could start earlier and planners knew which product sequences required the biggest changes. Only a team that combined that knowledge could design a better method, and only one that included operators would see it adopted.

Inputs: Composition, Size, Goal and Resources

The team had nine members: two operators from each shift, chosen by their crews; one mechanic; one quality technician; and one planner, with a process engineer as facilitator. Stewart (2006) found in a meta-analysis of team design features that team composition and task design were related to team performance, with leadership and structural features also mattering, and that relationships varied by type of team. Nine is large enough to represent each shift and function and small enough for everyone to contribute.

The goal was specific: average changeover under 25 minutes within twelve weeks, on all lines, with no increase in quality holds. The team received four hours a week of paid time, a budget of $30,000 for tools and parts and authority to trial new methods on two lines without approval.

Processes: How the Team Worked

Kozlowski and Ilgen (2006), in a broad review for practitioners, emphasized team processes such as coordination, communication, team learning and the development of shared understanding as the means by which inputs become outcomes. The team's first meetings were dominated by the engineer and the long-serving day shift operators. Night-shift members said little. After the second meeting, the facilitator changed the format: each member filmed one changeover on their own shift, and the team watched the videos together, with operators narrating. That shifted attention from rank to evidence.

The videos revealed that about 40 percent of changeover time went to activities that could be done while the line was still running: fetching film rolls, finding the right change parts and preheating sealing jaws. Mechanics proposed a changeover cart with all parts for each product family; operators proposed a checklist and a two-person changeover instead of one operator working while others waited; the quality technician proposed starting the first quality check on the first good bags instead of after the line reached full speed.

The engineer's procedure failed because it was written for operators; the team's worked because it was written by them.

Conflict and How It Was Handled

The team argued about whether operators should adjust sealing temperatures themselves, a task reserved for mechanics. The mechanic worried about damaged jaws; operators said waiting for a mechanic added ten minutes. The team settled it with evidence: a trial on one line where trained operators made adjustments within set limits, with the mechanic checking results. Jaw damage did not increase, and the practice was adopted with training.

Outcomes

Over twelve weeks, average changeover time fell from about 45 to about 20 minutes, recovering about 35 line hours a day across the plant. Quality holds after changeovers fell by about a third. Team members reported in a short survey that they had learned skills from other functions and would join another team. Mathieu et al. (2008) reviewed team effectiveness research and noted that outcomes include members' attitudes and viability as well as task performance, which the survey captured.

Where Synergy Came From

Steiner (1972) argued that what a group actually produces falls short of what it could produce by the amount lost to poor coordination and weak motivation. The team's potential lay in combining knowledge no single member had: the cart came from mechanics, the two-person method from operators, the earlier quality check from the technician. None of these alone would have cut more than about ten minutes; together they cut twenty-five.

Process Losses

Losses were real. Early deference to the engineer's status wasted two meetings. Meeting times favored the day shift until the team rotated them. One night-shift member dropped out because attending meant coming in on a day off; the team arranged paid overtime for later meetings.

Spreading the Method

A method that works on two trial lines can still fail across fourteen. The team planned the rollout itself: each pair of operators trained the crews on its own shift, using the videos and the checklist, and the mechanic built a cart for every line. The facilitator tracked changeover times by line each week and posted them by the time clock. Three lines lagged after a month; in each case the cart had been raided for parts. A sign-out sheet and a weekly cart check by the line lead fixed the problem. The rollout took six weeks, and by its end the slowest line averaged 24 minutes.

What It Meant for the Plant

Recovering about 35 line hours a day is worth more than any single line the plant could buy. It allowed the planner to schedule smaller, more frequent runs, which brand customers had been requesting, and to cut weekend overtime by about a third. Operators on the team became the people others asked about changeovers, a new informal role that carried status earned by skill rather than seniority. Two of them later applied for line lead positions. These effects extended well beyond the task the team was given, a sign that well-designed teams can change how an organization learns.

Lessons for Future Teams

From this team I take five lessons. Choose members for knowledge, not rank; give a measurable goal, time and authority; use shared evidence to flatten status; settle conflicts with trials; and schedule fairly across shifts.

Conclusion

The changeover team succeeded because it was designed as a team: members chosen to combine scattered knowledge, a specific goal, real resources and processes that put evidence ahead of status. Its results, changeovers cut by more than half and members eager to work together again, show synergy that no individual expert had produced. The process losses it faced, and how it overcame them, are as instructive as its success.

References

Kozlowski, S. W. J., & Ilgen, D. R. (2006). Enhancing the effectiveness of work groups and teams. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 7(3), 77-124. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1529-1006.2006.00030.x

Mathieu, J., Maynard, M. T., Rapp, T., & Gilson, L. (2008). Team effectiveness 1997-2007: A review of recent advancements and a glimpse into the future. Journal of Management, 34(3), 410-476. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206308316061

Steiner, I. D. (1972). Group process and productivity. Academic Press.

Stewart, G. L. (2006). A meta-analytic review of relationships between team design features and team performance. Journal of Management, 32(1), 29-55. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206305277792