Change Management and Lean Training Generated over $50M Savings in 3 Years for North American Railroad
This is a highly competitive Class 1 Railroad with geographically dispersed operations and acquired business components still having old culture.
Situation
This is a highly competitive Class 1 Railroad with geographically dispersed operations and acquired business components still having old culture. Past efforts to transform the culture with change management had limited success as they have a highly unionized workforce working with a myriad of procedures, policies, and metrics, and they were unable to meet investor expectations based on their performance measurements including transit time, asset utilization, mechanical reliability.
Actions
- Worked with top management to create a powerful vision, define expectations and develop a roadmap for change
- Identified skill and performance gaps in the organization
- Developed and delivered tailored training from senior executives to line level employees
- Conducted 20 pilot change projects across the business, followed by a simultaneous rollout in 8 top yards covering 3000 employees and 200 work areas
- Provided hands-on training with Train-The-Trainer approach to develop client capability
- Implemented a performance management system to sustain change
Results
- Created over 50 trained internal change agents that are sustaining the effort and expanding lean into new areas
- Positive feedback and active union participation
- Generated over $50M savings in the first three years of the implementation