May 2011 - Amtrak

$2,600. Repairing and refurbishing a used equalizer at the shop, by
contrast, costs about $234. Over the course of a 12-month period,
this translates into a cost savings of $161,800 over the cost to purchase
new equalizers.
The facility started buying equalizers because the shop could not
keep pace with truck production. Recent efforts to realign labor
resources, however, have enabled the shop to reduce the pool of
unusable equalizers, with the long-term goal of eliminating new
purchases.
Steve Stone, local leader for the International Brotherhood of
Boilermakers and Blacksmiths (IBB) and a boilermaker and
welder at Beech Grove for 37 years, says the proposal to refurbish
the equipment came about as a direct result of recent union and
management talks.
“I’m a union man myself,” he says. “But we’ve really gotten
together with management on how we can save money.”
The recent collaboration has required a change in mindset
among all players, says John Grey, the superintendent at Beech
Grove.
After the trip to American Airlines’ mechanical operations, he
says, union and management leaders got together, “and we had a
really tough session,” says Grey. “Everyone got things off their
Marisol Mejia Prince joined the Beech
Grove mechanical facility’s staff in April,
filling the newly created role of process engineer.
Prior to coming to
Amtrak, she worked as a
foreman and management
expert in the manufacturing
and automotive industries.
Here, she talks about how
she’s approaching the job
and explains what the management-strategy
terms Six
Sigma and “lean manufacturing”
really mean.
Q: How would you describe
your role?
A: A lot of what process engineering is
about is taking something existing, like a
process, and looking at it with a fresh pair of
eyes.
One of the things that has driven me in
engineering and the different jobs I’ve had
is looking at a problem and working with
different people to solve it. I’ve always
believed the answers to most manufacturing-related
problems are already out there.
The people who are working on the product
already have the solution. And they’re just
looking for a little encouragement or
support to implement answers they already
Marisol Mejia Prince
have.
I’ve seen work I’ve done get outsourced
overseas, and I’ve lost my job and been laid
off because of it. And so I look
for every chance I can get to keep
work here that we can do successfully
here.
Q: What are the challenges and
opportunities for Beech Grove?
A: Well, we have an older facility.
And related to that, the work
flow is not always laid out in a
way that’s most efficient.
So the challenge is, how do we
break out of the mindset that
that’s just the way things are?
The employees here do a very good job of
working around challenges. But how do we
eliminate problems so that they don’t have
to work around them? How do we get
ahead of them?
One of the areas we can improve on is
finding better ways to share information.
We need a more central system so that
someone in Trim shop (the end of the
process) can easily know when we’ll be
pulling in a certain car into Coach 1 (the
beginning of the process). And then they
can start planning accordingly.
Now, obviously the specific timing
depends on a lot of things that happen
Amtrak Ink May 2011 | 11
chest. And then we said, Ok, let’s put the past behind us and move
forward.”
Grey says he gives a lot of credit to the local union chairmen.
“They’ve really stepped up to the plate.” At his request, the unions
now even run the weekly meetings in Beech Grove to plan the
future of the shop.
A new culture of cooperation has also taken hold in Delaware,
says Frank Gentry, president of the local International Brotherhood
of Electrical Workers (IBEW), which covers Bear and Wilmington.
“Lew Wood [superintendent at Bear] and Bob Costello [superintendent
at Wilmington] come to us frequently, and we often bring
issues to them,” says Gentry. “That kind of communication is what
will help ensure our future.”
Gentry says the addition of new employees has also added
energy to the shops. “They want to know they’ll have a job 20 years
from now,” he says.
Other examples of recent cost savings include the $17,000 a year
the company is no longer spending since the Wilmington facility
took over the servicing of fire extinguishers for Northeast Corridor
electric locomotives and coaches.
continued on page 12
during the process. But just having that
information easily accessible can help
people plan better. It lets them know where
they need to start focusing their priorities.
Q: What’s behind the strategies?
A: Strategies such as Six Sigma and “lean
manufacturing” are sometimes misunderstood,
and they can be applied incorrectly.
It’s really about giving people the tools
and materials they need to do their job
more efficiently. I know it’s cliché, but it
really is about working smarter, not harder.
It’s finding ways to reduce and hopefully
eliminate waste in terms of bad parts or
having to rework something because of bad
information or having to move materials in
and out of a station because of a mistake
made somewhere along the line. It’s about
better workflow.
That’s what allows people to get more
done in less time and more efficiently.
That’s what we can do to improve business
at Beech Grove without having to wait for
increases in budget.
The important thing to remember is that
it’s a very competitive market out there, and
everyone should know that the world is
changing, business is changing. And because
of that we have to change, too. It doesn’t
have to be painful. It doesn’t have to be
frightening. We control our own destiny. ■