Atlanta's MillerKnoll Certified Dealer
As a Miller Certified Network Dealer HMPS is a requirement and is measured through annual field audits by Herman Miller, annual meetings to share best practices with our dealer partners throughout the United States and satisfaction surveys required on every project—where CWC has a 99.4% satisfaction rating.
Several years ago, MillerKnoll determined they needed to improve all aspects of their manufacturing process. They partnered with Toyota and developed the historic Herman Miller Production System (HMPS). The program delivered excellent on-time delivery, quality, and cost reduction results. Herman Miller realized that their dealer partners could use the principles and tools of HMPS to help improve the processes at the dealer level. From a dealer perspective, the HMPS program looks at problems and choke points to success and attempts to mitigate them.
The approach is based on three things: First, let the people closest to the problem identify and solve the problem. Second, have a standard method to evaluate and determine the solution's effectiveness. Third, ensure the lessons learned are shared across the organization.
We let the field crews, designers, customer service reps, or project managers identify the problems and proposed solutions. We then attempt to develop a solution and generate an experiment to test the proposed solution. The experiment results are evaluated; if necessary, the solution is adjusted, and the experiment runs again. We have a full-time, internal HMPS coach that runs the program and ensures that our successes (and failures) are spread across the organization.
Several things we have found as a result of this process:
- Just in Time delivery. If the installation site accommodates it, we deliver daily and install everything before the subsequent delivery. This dramatically minimizes the different products on the way to the floor.
- Smaller orders can be pre-staged in the warehouse on mobile carts and delivered directly to the installation location. This process is referred to as kits, and it reduces the trash and excess product at the Jobsite.
- HMPS can build new, popular, adjustable tables outside the installation zone. This allows them to be made and moved into the installation area. Again, faster install time and minimum trash in the building area.
- Technology tools like Smartsheet and PlanGrid have been added to our Project Management process to add efficiency, save time and provide better communication platforms.
- HMPS created a Punch Coordinator position to expedite punch list closure better.
Continued improvement continues every day as a part of our DNA. As a MillerKnoll Certified Network Dealer, HMPS is a requirement. It is measured through annual field audits by Herman Miller, yearly meetings to share best practices with our dealer partners throughout the United States, and satisfaction surveys required on every project—where CWC has a 99.4% satisfaction rating.
