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Jean Bye (L) receiving her speaker award from Meeting Chair Gene Muratore
Bio Jean Bye has worked for the Dotson Company for over 30 Years and for the past fifteen years she has been the Executive Vice President of Dotson. During that time she has managed most areas of the company including Human Resources, Finance, Accounting, Purchasing, Information Technology, Customer Service and Production. Jean has been the champion of the data processing area and managed it through four different platforms over that 30 year period. Most recently, Jean's focus has been on culture change as the company adopts a Lean approach to thinking and operations. Jean has served on the Board of Directors for the Minnesota Center for Engineering and Manufacturing Excellence, The Greater Mankato Area Economic Development Board and the SCOLA Endowment Fund Board. Jean is married and has three children. Transitioning
to a Lean Culture Jean Bye - Dotson Company As background, Dotson is a ductile and gray iron jobbing shop at a single 110,000 square foot location. Active customer base is 200 and there are 137 employees. The company pours 24 hours per day for 5-6 days per week. There are two 8000 pound induction furnaces; three 20x24 molding and pouring lines; Laempe core machines; and 40% of castings are ground on automatic Barinder grinders. What did we have? We were a traditional foundry with long lead times. Nervous customers were expediting rush orders. We had very complex systems and many times conflicting priority lists. Excess inventory and lots of excess material handling. And, paper everywhere (which was never current). Why did we need to
change? Like everyone else, we have lots of foreign competitive pressures. We wanted to compete on something other than price. Many customers were putting pressure on for us to handle their inventory. There was a severe space constraint. Always fighting fires was inefficient and ineffective. Simply stated we need flow. How did we start? One of our customers gave us a push and we partnered with Minnesota Technology for training. In hindsight, this was essential. It is almost impossible to drive a lean change without some outside help. | |||
