E19: Implementing Lean Production at Opel Eisenach

Rick Brown Story

This is the last episode of my 3 part Eisenach series, focusing on the work aspect. Dealing with people who have been brought up differently under a set of ideologies I am not very familiar with was intimidating. But in the end, I realized good people are good people regardless of which system they function under, and that people anywhere can appreciate efficiency when they are exposed and taught. From recruitment to assessment to training, our team basically replicated what we had impremented at CAMI in Canada in a different language. And the end result was a great team that turned Opel Eisenach into the most efficient plant in Europe in no time. To get there, we had to go through a transformational process where production principles that originated in Japan had to find home in Germany. I had lots of help from Opel managers on site to our local hires that seized the process and turn them into something which was eventually called a set of Opel Eisenach production principles. I spent nearly three years in Germany, no doubt the most intense period in my life in terms of education, getting caught up in the winds of geopolitics, cultural exposure and friendship building. Now I am off to another assignment in a different European location bidding farewell to Eisenach, a place and people I will never forget.