A change of Pace

by Matthew Moore on 14th January 2008

Refreshing an existing change process such as Continuous Improvement is not an easy task, however Pace Microtechnology have achieved just that. This case study identifies some of the key steps that helped achieve successful outcomes as well as learning that can help those considering the launch of a change process such as Continuous Improvement in the future.

Introduction

Being at the forefront of technology carries a price - the rate of change is massive and Pace Micro Technology has had more than its fair share. Based in Shipley, near Bradford, with operations in France and the USA, Pace started out as a small company designing and producing dial-up modems. With the boom in the internet and cable/satellite TV, Pace experienced massive growth and became a market leader in ‘set-top box’ technology - a position it now holds with some pride.

Things haven't always been like this though. In 2002, Pace’s fortunes took a significant downturn as their customers reforecast the demand for their products. Suddenly a healthy profit turned into a huge projected loss.

Large-scale redundancies soon followed creating a negative feeling in a company that had, up until that point, a family feel about it.

Kaizen-training was asked to help Pace transform itself through refreshing its change programme - Continuous Improvement (CI). Previously Pace had launched the programme with extensive training being given to over 80 team leaders and facilitators. However, the impetus had faded away and all that remained were a few tired projects and a lot of cynical voices.

Planning the First Steps

A survey of trained facilitators was carried out to find out what was holding the programme back. Three messages were heard loud and clear.. ”Management just isn’t committed to it”, “It’s seen as a waste of people’s time” and “The way we do it isn’t user friendly”. So what interventions could be carried out to shift these attitudes?

A small team of people from HR, Marketing and Quality were put together, and with the help of Trevor Durnford from Kaizen Training, developed a route map of how CI could be refreshed. The Vision for CI developed by the team was to have a vibrant CI process in place, making a massive difference with 100% of employees participating actively - a real challenge given the context at the time. The route-map developed by the team included the following milestones:

Refreshing the approach to CI including simplifying the problem solving toolkit
Engaging the Executive team and determining their Vision for the business and the role of CI in its achievement
Selecting the themes for top down focus
Communication cascade from the Exec team
Selection and development of facilitators
Overhaul of intranet support for CI activities

The planned journey changed as Pace took its first steps, but all of these milestones proved critical.

Combining the strengths of Marketing and HR as well as the Quality professionals also meant that people capability and communications were included in the planning process – a key lesson for those implementing more technically oriented change processes such as Six Sigma.

Refreshing the Approach

Simply using the term ‘refresh’ instead of revamp, renew or re-invent was very powerful. The people at Pace are proud of their origins and therefore using language that suggested we were embarking on the next chapter rather than a different book was important.

The first step towards refreshing the approach was to simplify the problem solving process. Pace had originally decided on the Ford 8D approach to improvement. This method is a particularly systematic approach to problem solving but it does have its drawbacks with some feeling that it was a little cumbersome. With help from Kaizen, a small group of people developed the Pace framework:

P = Problem
A = Analyze
C = Change and
E = Embed

Whilst this structure is fundamentally in tune with the principles of D-M-A-I-C and the PDCA loop – it is owned and therefore used with pride inside the organisation.

Engaging the Executive Team

If there was one thing that proved pivotal, it was spending a full day with the Executive team, engaging them on their Vision for the business and challenging them on their leadership of CI. Kaizen facilitated the day with the support and commitment of John Dyson, the CEO and Maggie Pedder, the HR director. The outcomes of the workshop were critical:

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