Blog | Stiles Associates

Untangled: How Lean Management Helped a Huge GE Turbine Factory Find its Mojo

Written by Stiles Associates | Jan 4, 2022 6:39:58 PM

The turnaround efforts continue at this great American manufacturing organization. Under the guidance of Larry Culp, the former Danaher CEO, General Electric is regaining ground using lessons from Toyota.

Read the original article on GE's website: https://www.ge.com/news/reports/untangled-how-lean-management-helped-a-huge-ge-turbine-factory-find-its-mojo

Snippet:

In the last half-century, the GE Gas Power plant in Greenville, South Carolina has experienced the same kind of dizzying roller coaster ride as the city where it’s located. Founded some 200 years ago on the Reedy River, Greenville grew into a textile manufacturing hot spot and a paragon of Southern hospitality — until the 1970s, when the city’s downtown took a turn. Mills closed, hotels shuttered, and the clattering trams carrying riders on shopping errands and to business lunches fell silent.

Then, two decades ago, civic and business leaders started pulling together — and began turning things around. They knocked down a four-lane highway built over Greenville’s iconic falls on the Reedy, surrounded the river with a handsome park, and restored much of the downtown’s faded glamour.

But not everyone had a reason to kick up their heels. In 2017, just as Vogue touted the revived town’s burgeoning food scene, engineers at the GE plant, located a short car ride from the center of town, found themselves facing their own downturn.