Some 10 or so years ago, senior leadership at General Cable Corp. seized upon lean manufacturing as a means to differentiate the company, later complemented with a Six Sigma methodology. Lean's attraction for the manufacturer of copper, aluminum and fiber optic wire and cable products was both its waste-elimination component and its reliance on the talents of the entire workforce to continually improve.
"In order to have control of our destiny, we needed to have a best cost position," says Gregory Kenny, General Cable's president and chief executive officer.
Today, he says, "We've got an army of change agents who think about lean as a natural instinct as opposed to, 'Oh it's time to think about lean.' Making the company better continually has allowed us to really get through some tough times."
