Communicate, communicate, communicate
Bob Trebilcock, Editor-at-Large -- Modern Materials Handling, 12/1/2004
The success of CooperVision’s new system can be summed up in three words: communicate, communicate, communicate.
“One of the things we identified early on was that change management was going to be important,” says Stannard. “We started communicating with the work force long in advance before we did any steps.”The management duties of the change management program were directed by Jeff McCaffrey, project manager, and Deb Curran, operations manager. Voice, for instance, was the first piece to be implemented because they believed it would be the least complicated to get up and running. “This was going to be a huge project and we wanted to start off with a win to build momentum rather than put in a more difficult piece of automation and have people complain,” Stannard says. To prepare the floor personnel, McCaffrey and Curran hung banners that read: We speak Voxware. They also brought in the headsets and began doing demos a month before they were going to be implemented to get employees used to them. McCaffery, Curran and their team held staff meetings, did demonstrations, and brought in vendors to speak to the staff. Whenever the team visited a facility they brought back pictures and video of the operations. They also installed a separate bulletin board with drawings of the new facility six months before they moved in. “Communicate, communicate, communicate,” Stannard reiterates. “We would not be where we are today if we didn’t preach that at every different stage.”
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