Incentive - March 2008 - (Page 34)

What’s the Big Idea? Case Study #2 Honda of America Manufacturing Automotive giant Honda Motor Company may have made its name selling compact cars to American consumers, but the company has stayed on top by knowing how to think outside the box. A perennial on BusinessWeek’s list of the 100 most innovative companies (number 12 in 2007, up from number 26 the previous year), Honda also ranks among the world’s top 20 companies for patent applications, applying for a total of 836 in 2006, according to IFI Patent Intelligence. This spirit of innovation originated with the company’s founder, Soichiro Honda, who began his career as a mechanic. Honda’s management style has been to develop employees, called associates internally, who know how to think creatively and speak up, regardless of their rank. This is no more true elsewhere in the international company than at the four plants that make up Honda of America Manufacturing. “The purpose of our involvement program is education of the associate,” says Pilate Bradley Jr., head of Honda’s Involvement Department in Anna, Ohio. “If we have associates here who don’t know how to problem-solve out there on the line, we’re not going to be as competitive as a company.” Honda Manufacturing has a three-tier idea generation program, with one level— open to non-exempt employees—for issues of safety and efficiency, another level for teams of three or more associates who work together on a problem, and a third for individual employees who go “above and beyond” to find and fix problems with product quality. An essential aspect of the program is that the employee’s participation doesn’t end after a suggestion is made. Once an employee fills out a form with the idea, it is entered into a database by a manager and sent electronically to upper management. If approved, the challenge of following through is then put back on the employee. “They implement the idea,” says Bradley. “They might need a coordinator and some other people to assist, but they stay with it until it gets done.” This involvement extends to reporting on the success of the suggestion, by having the employee collect before and after data on the time, cost and savings of the process. By doing so, the employee is able to see the impact of his

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Incentive - March 2008

Incentive - March 2008 Contents Editor’s Note: Delivering on Diversity In The News Cover Story: Leveraging Diversity in the Workplace Incentive Interview: Paul Levesque on Why Awards Fail Case Study: AEIS’ Max!-imum Incentive Program Mine Employees’ Creativity with Innovation Incentives Incentive Must-Reads The Third Annual Gift Card Roundtable My Turn: Motivation or Bribery? Everybody Get Together In Her Shoes: Why Bosses Should Be Flexible Incentive Primer: Passport Problem-Solving potentials Here and Now Is CES Electronics Heaven? China and Crystal: More Than a Pretty Face Travel News Florida: What’s New on the Beach? Smooth Sailing for Incentive Cruising Come To Hawaii And Take It Fast Last Word: But Enough About You

Incentive - March 2008

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