Story Title: Herb Trade Employees Become Seasoned Lean Manufacturing Practitioners Client Profile: Herb Trade, headquartered in Reno, Nevada is the premier U.S. resource for bulk buyers of NOP (National Organic Program) organic botanicals, spices, fruits, vegetables and mushrooms. The company has developed an extensive network of suppliers and farmers from over 30 countries across five continents. Herb Trade serves as a ‘preparatory manufacturer,’ with cutting, grinding, sifting, blending and roasting capabilities to supply product to other manufacturers. The company employs 40 people.  Situation: Herb Trade’s rapid additions of new equipment, new employees, and new customers with unique requirements were causing significant growing pains. Owners Kevin Lindseth and Richard Mason wanted to ensure that this growth was managed cost-effectively, while maintaining stringent quality requirements. They were also concerned with maximizing production capacity and maintaining on-time delivery to their customers without the need for massive new capital investments. The company contacted the Nevada Industry Excellence, a NIST MEP network affiliate, for help.  Solution: Nevada Industry Excellence met with Herb Trade and identified the following benchmarks: 1) maintaining the ability to compete in the global marketplace; 2) compliance with stringent quality requirements unique to the food processing industry; 3) engaging and empowering all workers (irrespective of culture) to be responsible and involved in the continuous improvement process; 4) establishing and standardizing work processes, goals, metrics and feedback systems; and 5) improving communication throughout the organization.  Nevada Industry Excellence recognized that a Department of Labor (DOL) Grant Program designed to assist the food processing industry in streamlining operations and remaining competitive was ideally suited to address the challenges facing Herb Trade. Recognizing that Hispanic and Latino workers with limited English proficiency make up a large portion of the regional food processing industry work force, this program was unique in that a major component of the Lean implementation focused on cultural diversity and communication issues. Nevada Industry Excellence assembled a team including Marcel Schaerer, International Professional Development Services, and Tom Fabrizio, Lean Manufacturing Tools, to lead the phased cultural/lean transformation effort at Herb Trade. Initial training/development efforts focused primarily on cultural aspects. Forty-nine Herb Trade employees participated in over 1,000 man-hours of training in Lean English Essentials (preparatory training in lean principles for employees with limited English proficiency), Anglo Culture, Hispanic Culture and Spanish for Supervisors training sessions, culminating in a series of Lean 101 Workshops. As knowledge of Lean principles and tools grew across the company and language/cultural barriers were removed, specific projects including Value Stream Mapping, quick changeover, 5S, plant layout, work standards, training matrices and establishment of metrics were initiated. After participating in the training program and workshops, company employees began to examine their work methods and continue to look for ways to eliminate waste in the manufacturing process.  Results: * Reduced costs by 27 percent. * Reduced changeover time from 2.5 hours to 1 hour. * Improved employee satisfaction.  Testimonial: “With Nevada Industry Excellence’s assistance, we were able to reduce our manufacturing costs by over 27 percent. Our customers have been very pleased to see our implementation of Lean, especially 5S, visual workplace and standardized work procedures.”  - John Collier, Plant Manager Activity Period: 2006-4