Out with the old, in with the new.

That's what's happening at Dana Glacier Vandervell, North America in Atlantic, lA. Dave Wohlleber, training coordinator and HR assistant for the company says that when Dana Corp. purchased Glacier Vandervell, they brought with them a new suggestion program: The Ideas Program.

The old suggestion program, Real Participative Management, was very resource oriented. A person came up with an idea and it typically involved several other people versus just that individual.

The Dana philosophy is to keep it simple. Let the individual make the implementation of the new idea unless they absolutely need some help. Each individual is an expert in their own 25 square feet.

Another way to look at it is that in the old program employees are renters. In the new program employees are owners.

Of the renter-type program,Wohlleber explains: “If I had an idea and wrote it up, I would then turn it over to my supervisor or someone in engineering or maintenance. Then that person would have to do the legwork or go figure out how to make it work for me. It's like handing a baton off in a track meet. Once you hand the baton off somebody else has it and they're running with it. So, it's their responsibility. That's what we call a renter, a renter passes it off."

Of the owner-type system, he says: “Owners keep the baton and they do the race themselves for the most part. If they have a real good idea that involves somebody else, then that other person gets a share in that idea also."

The reward system that the company uses also is kept simple. The company is nearing the first quarter of full implementation of the program. The Idea Steering Committee establishes a goal to reach a certain level of ideas. "If the goal is reached then we all have free vending for a day." The committee will meet again and establish a new goal for the second quarter.

The Ideas Program is geared toward small things that make an employee more productive. For example:

One area of the plant packages different products into kits to send to a customer. The employees renovated the work area after talking to their supervisor. They moved the tables around a little bit differently. Eight inches worth of movement enabled the employees to get out 14 more of the kits an hour.

Wohlleber says that they have a lot of people do things with organizing their files. "We have many different product part numbers here. Different groups take individual part numbers and merge them into customers. This makes it quicker for them to find a specific customer."

"What the program is all about is any idea that is basically going to let you find something quicker, be it a file or a tool, or any kind of improvement that just helps make your job easier, helps make your thinking easier," says Wohlleber.