Lynn Sutton, a managing principle of Kairos Consulting Worldwide, is accustomed to being ready. After all, the word Kairos means the right or opportune moment when an opening appears which must be driven through with force to achieve success.

"You definitely have to be ready," says Sutton. "And take [a project] on if it’s in your comfort area."

So, when Lufthansa Technik Philippines (LHTP), a maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) provider for commercial operators, contacted them for advisory services, Kairos was prepared.

The specific assignment for LHT Philippines, which serves international and local carriers that fly to the Philippines, was simple: implement a Lean Six Sigma initiative — a business improvement methodology that seeks to speed processes, increase efficiency and improve customer satisfaction — at Lufthansa Technik’s Manila facility, with the goal of increasing the speed and service quality.

"This was an organization that decided to focus on Lean and embed that into their culture," says Sutton. "They were looking for someone who could not only implement the Lean Six and get them lean and mean relatively quickly, but who also had significant experience working within the Asian community," she adds.

Over the couple months following Lufthansa’s initial contact, Sutton worked with her team to outline what Kairos could bring to the project. In December 2007, they flew to the Philippines for a presentation. A month later and after an international search, Kairos was awarded the assignment and at the beginning of February 2008 started work.

Sutton says they paid very close attention to Lufthansa Technik’s needs and believes that resonated with them. "We listened closely to what they were most concerned about and what they were trying to achieve instead of other firms, who come in and tell you what you need," she continues. "It was a surprise to get this opportunity from across the ocean and we were thrilled to be recognized."

Founded in 2004, Kairos is a management consulting firm that specializes in leveraging technology and existing resources to improve business performance. Based in Chicago, Kairos targets a wide range of private and public organizations. Using a base of independent contractors, they seek to reduce operational risks and enable compliance by designing streamlined processes.

"Our clients are able to quantify their business objectives, and realize significant return on their technology investments," says Sutton, whose company has worked extensively on behalf of multinational corporations. "We help our clients realize greater productivity and increased efficiencies, giving them back both money and time."

According to Mark Hehl, a leading management consultant with Kairos on the project, Lufthansa Technik — which has more than 2,000 administrators and technicians in Manila serving both Lufthansa Airlines and other carriers — had three key objectives: identify opportunities to streamline their processes and bring about savings, teach Lean Six Sigma techniques, and establish a lean culture.

"They wanted a lean culture to be the way they addressed and approached their business," says Hehl, who’s been consulting since 2003 and has spent a majority of his career implementing quality assurance programs. "They decided to change their focus with the promise of savings and the opportunity that would come afterwards."

Throughout the process, Lufthansa communicated to Kairos their primary objective was not focused on the monetary aspects as much as getting it right and deeply ingraining the lean mentality. "They understood that with lean you could see results very quickly up front, but if the mentality is embedded into the culture you would see ongoing results," says Hehl.

Communication

Kairos began the implementation of the Lean Six Sigma by setting up a good communication system. They put together a presentation to help Lufthansa’s employees understand what lean is, set up a number of bulletin boards, and convinced the company newsletter to dedicate one page to lean. The idea was to give employees as much information as possible. In order to address potential concerns, they also listed what lean could do for them. Any time Kairos reported gains, they made sure that it was communicated throughout the organization. People can’t argue with success, Hehl explains.

Next, Kairos indicated to Lufthansa’s president and CEO, Bernhard Krueger-Sprengel, that he had to be very visible and active during the project, convincing him that any time they started a lean project or any lean training, he should kick it off. He also reported that there would be no job eliminations because of lean.

Sutton acknowledges the fact the president was on board at the start of all of these initiatives, and laid down some assurances. "With any kind of effort that looks like its going to change the way things are done, when it’s going to challenge the status quo, especially in that kind of environment, you’re going to get a lot of people very fearful of their jobs," she says. "We always ask our clients up front to make assurances to their employees or allow us to make them. That we are not going in to reduce the head count [and instead] looking to see how we can make it better for the customer and how we can make things better for the company and the individuals who work there."

Kairos also engaged the company’s management team and kept them apprised of what was happening, focusing on problem areas and trying to address concerns. In other words, they were trying to have lean help everybody at every level of the organization.

However, the implementation was not without challenges. Skepticism served as one of the main issues. According to Hehl, one of the company’s vice presidents was against lean, as well as employees who thought lean was going to pressure them to work faster.

"We had to constantly tell them that working faster works against lean because when you rush, it normally results in more mistakes and that translates into more rework, which actually slows down the process," says Hehl.

"It took a few months before the workers actually accepted that. I also constantly gave the vice president updates on the benefits and eventually he was turned around because he could not argue with some of the gains that we did see."

Challenges and Payoffs

Culture differences served as another challenge. In the Asian community, older people of authority and in upper management are held in high regard. Hehl says that two young engineers assigned to him had difficulty in challenging anyone that was older.

Hehl reports that the company’s efforts resulted in $14 million in annual savings over a six-month period for Lufthansa Technik — a figure well above expectations. However, Hehl not only measures the level of success financially, but whether the organization’s mindset has changed, including one person who came out openly against it.

Sutton acknowledges Lufthansa Technik knew the financial gains would come eventually, but they came far sooner than anticipated. More importantly, by the time they got to the mid-point of the project, there were a lot more teams who wanted lean brought into their shops.

"They could see not only the financial data, but the change in attitude of the mechanics and the folks actually working with it. Here you had teams that were engaged in the thought process and whose opinions were being valued and used in the day to day business," she continues. "They could clearly see that the one thing they wanted to have established in the lean culture was absolutely happening and it was spreading very positively. Then they started to understand that not only are we getting the benefit on the side of our employees, we’re changing the job conditions for them and improving their motivation."

In fact, Sutton says once Lufthansa saw the gains for the first project, they invited Kairos back for another two-month assignment, an airframe modification they wanted integrated into one of their normal operations, without any extra work or extra time.

"They thought they would have to add another 25 percent in time to it, but we were able to reduce the time it takes to do this particular work," says Hehl. "They can now go to their customers and say, ‘We can do your normal work and this mandatory modification and it’s not going to cost us any more time in your schedule.’ And supposedly they are the only ones in the industry that can claim that."

Sutton adds that Lufthansa Technik not only wanted to streamline their operations, but improve their competitive advantage by giving their customers the best service. "We were able to give them an edge. They are now able to turn around aircraft much sooner than they did before and can take on work they perhaps might have turned away," she says. "They can also return aircraft to their customers sooner. Time, of course, in this industry, is money. Not only for them, but for their customers, also."

Overall, Sutton says she was very excited to have the opportunity to work with LHTP and to produce the type of results they did. "When I look at it, I believe Kairos brought the right team and the right experience to form the right approach for this company," she says. "I’m glad that our clients were so pleased with our work they wanted repeat business along with the opportunity for an extended relationship."