Ohio plant seeks savings with shot-clock approach

COLUMBUS (AP) — Decades ago, the NBA instituted the shot clock to pick up the pace of the game.

Today, Worthington Industries wants to see whether what works in basketball can also work in manufacturing.

The Columbus-based steel processor has installed shot-clocklike devices at its factory work stations. Teams of workers can see exactly how long they should take to do specific tasks — and how actual performance stacks up.

This is one of the most visible aspects of Worthington’s “transformation plan,” an attempt to become more efficient as it emerges from a historic downturn. The company’s transformation included becoming leaner. It now employs 6,400 worldwide, 20 percent fewer than a year ago.

“It’s a reinvigoration of the basic principles under which we grew up,” said John P. McConnell, the chairman and CEO.

His father, company founder John H. McConnell, used to say that each factory should be managed like a country store, with decisions made on the local level and workers empowered to improve on their own.

McConnell is looking at ways he can retain the advantages of the country store, while modernizing and centralizing some functions. The results might be the most substantial changes of his tenure.

At the company’s steel-processing plant on the Far North Side, big digital clocks are attached to the major work stations. They allow workers to see, for example, how long they have been working to reload a steel slitter, a device that cuts through a thick roll of steel sheeting. The clock shows that the goal is to complete the task in 25 minutes, 37 seconds.

The idea of timing individual tasks is not new for manufacturers. What is relatively new is the prominent display of the clocks, for all workers and managers to see, said Peter T. Ward, chairman of the Department of Management Sciences at Ohio State University.

“We have goals. We are accountable to those goals, and we share it openly,” Ward said of the rationale for this approach.

The proposal for the clocks came from workers in Worthington’s steel-processing plant in Baltimore, Md. This was part of the transformation plan, which began early last year.

“Everybody is back, actively trying to improve that aspect of their jobs,” McConnell said. “It’s been fun and exciting to watch.”

This is a change from the previous two decades, he said, a time when he thinks the company got caught up in the perception of its success. McConnell has been chief executive since 1993.

Another change is taking place in an office building near the Far North Side factory. The space, which is actually the former headquarters, was remodeled last year and turned into a nerve center for sales and purchasing.

On the third floor is a long desk, where top managers talk and answer phone calls to direct the functions across the country. These tasks used to be based at each facility. By bringing the group together, company leaders hope to get a better handle on the prices they pay for steel and the prices they charge customers.