Situation
From 2021 through 2022 Stratford Homes experienced 100% turnover of their production team. One of the prominent reasons for this turnover was due to inadequate training. A review of the company’s trainers found that many had never trained another employee, including supervisors, and that there were no training materials. The company needed to respond quickly as they were at risk of losing sales and the costs associated with the turnover continued to escalate.
Solutions
The president of Stratford Homes, Joel Banks, was familiar with the Training Within Industry (TWI) process and shared it with their Leadership Team. Their challenge appeared to be parallel to the difficulties in the workforce that were the impetus for TWI’s development: rapidly and effectively developing an unskilled workforce into skilled tradespeople without a large staff to support the development and deployment of a training system. Stratford Homes leadership engaged the Manufacturing Outreach Center in 2022 and worked through 2024 to lead the development of the system, focusing on high-turnover roles to quickly convert new team members to skilled tradespeople. The company had explored other training systems and consultants and found they did not fit their objectives well.
Results
- Increased/Retained Sales: From 2023 to 2024 the gross revenue/direct labor hour improved by 5%, retaining the 2024 sales objectives saving about $332K
- Improved Productivity: Stabilizing the workforce stabilized throughput and the company is seeing incremental improvement
- Increased/Retained Jobs: 30% Retention Improvement, approximately $40K in hard costs
- Cost Savings: 49% reduction in service/warranty claims, a $25K improvement
Testimonial
“At the beginning of our project, it was a bit challenging. Both organizations approached the process similar to developing standard operating procedures; my team had no experience and needed a more straightforward method. When we realigned around TWIs Job Instruction (JI) and Job Relations (JR), we saw the system’s power take effect. Both Nick Ford and Matt Wakefield were visibly invested in our success by meeting with each leader and reinforcing the intention of a JI, providing content creation guidance, training delivery methods, and deploying a management system to track the performance of each team member. Our deployment of TWI has been a significant leap forward for Stratford Homes and puts us on a stable platform to help retain new team members and begin the next journey of process improvements.” - Joel Banks, President of Stratford Homes