DB&T/Heartland Financial USA partner with NICC for workplacelean® training
1/30/2008 -
NICC Economic Workforce
D e v e l o p m en t
Winter 2008
Incentive
DB&T / Heartland Financial USApartner
with NICC for workplacelean® training
Northeast Iowa Community College’s training programs for area businesses cover more than manufacturing operations and industrial technology. One
program, named workplacelean®, is designed with your business office in mind. A comprehensive approach to improving organizational performance, workplacelean® evaluates and removes waste from office processes and transactions. Statistics show the percentage of waste in office processes is over 80 percent. How much more competitive, innovative and profitable could you be by redirecting your employees’ efforts toward more value-added activities? The payoff is better service to your customers and the opportunity to become more profitable. NICC can bring this training program to you, on site.
In the Spring of 2007, NICC’s Wendy Wheelock, executive director of the Town Clock and Dubuque Centers, met with Nancy Wilson, vice president of human resources at Heartland Financial USA, Inc., to discuss how they could benefit from workplacelean® tools and training. A brief informational meeting was conducted with key management employees, and the decision was made to start their lean journey.
A short time later, Tom Kammer and Barb Ettleson, both workplacelean® trainers, conducted two PILLARS training sessions for 25 key DB&T /Heartland
Financial employees and managers. workplacelean® PILLARS is a great introductory training program on Lean that utilizes an office simulation to allow participants to actually see the tools and concepts in action. DB&T /Heartland Financial training participants found the office training simulation to be a worthwhile investment and the training module was presented to all the Heartland Member Bank presidents at their annual strategic planning meeting in Sedona, Ariz., last September.
Since then, Heartland Financial has continued their commitment to Lean with two workplacelean® LAUNCH trainings. This training teaches the participants
Process Mapping on one of their own in-house processes, and they learn how to identify areas for improvement in those processes. A group of DB&T /Heartland Financial participants chose their accounts payable process and mail distribution process for their pilot projects. To date, over eight improvement areas have been identified in these two processes, and work is ongoing to implement improvement ideas.
A key player in DB&T / Heartland’s continuing commitment and success with Lean is Mark Siwiec, who joined the company’s human resources team after working in a continuous improvement culture with Subaru of Indiana. Siwiec is coordinating Lean initiatives at DB&T / Heartland and knows from experience that these efficiency and waste reduction ideas improve processes and the bottom line. “I have seen significant accomplishments in process improvements and cost reduction through implementation of continuous improvement principles. The workplacelean® LAUNCH and PILLARS training provided by Tom and Barb through NICC will provide us with the tools to implement our own unique continuous improvement process. The bottom line is we are always looking to improve and be more efficient so we can better serve our customers, ”Siwiec said.
To learn more about workplacelean® training, contact
Tom Kammer at (800) 728-
2256, ext. 308, kammert@nicc.edu; or contact
Roberta Murray at (800) 728-2256, ext. 313,
murrayr@nicc.edu.
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