Our Credo

Appendix A

Our Credo

We believe our first responsibility is to the doctors, nurses and patients, to mothers and fathers and all others who use our products and services.

In meeting their needs everything we do must be of high quality. We must constantly strive to reduce our costs

in order to maintain reasonable prices.

Customers' orders must be serviced promptly and accurately. Our suppliers and distributors must have an opportunity

to make a fair profit.

We are responsible to our employees,

the men and women who work with us throughout the world. Everyone must be considered as an individual. We must respect their dignity and recognize their merit.

They must have a sense of security in their jobs. Compensation must be fair and adequate, and working conditions clean, orderly and safe. We must be mindful of ways to help our employees fulfill

their family responsibilities.

Employees must feel free to make suggestions and complaints. There must be equal opportunity for employment, development

and advancement for those qualified. We must provide competent management, and their actions must be just and ethical.

We are responsible to the communities in which we live and work and to the world community as well.

We must be good citizens – support good works and charities and bear our fair share of taxes.

We must encourage civic improvements and better health and education. We must maintain in good order

the property we are privileged to use, protecting the environment and natural resources.

Our final responsibility is to our stockholders. Business must make a sound profit. We must experiment with new ideas.

Research must be carried on, innovative programs developed and mistakes paid for.

New equipment must be purchased, new facilities provided and new products launched.

Reserves must be created to provide for adverse times. When we operate according to these principles,

Appendix B

The lean production system

In the paper of Mehta & Shah (2005), a conceptual framework is presented that uses the five work design characteristics of Hackman & Oldman; skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy and feedback from job. From these work design characteristics, employee outcomes (employee commitment, motivation, job satisfaction, job-related strain) and organizational outcomes (productivity, performance) are identified (Mehta & Shah, 2005). So the amount of regulation possibilities, hence the regulation capacity, has a positive relation with employee commitment. On the other hand, Parker (2003) found in her research suggestions of negative human consequences that emerged form a lean production initiative. In that same research it was found that employee participation in decision making remained restricted in lean productions teams and commitment declined. Negative effects of lean production were at least partly attributable to declines in perceived work characteristics (job autonomy, skill utilization, and participation in decision making) (Parker, 2003).

The issue of LP in the West

The LP systems origin is found in Japan. It has supported the Japanese car manufacturer Toyota to become (almost) the largest of the world1. As a follow up on the Japanese successes in manufacturing, the West has also adopted the LP system. However, a nations culture seems to influence the adoption of the LP system. Currently the scientific literature on this topic is discussing this relation and the necessity of an adapted ‘West-LP’ version (Gough & Fastenau, 2004; Niepce & Molleman, 1998). Although Japanese feel committed to the company by nature, this commitment needs to be supported in western countries. This can be done by means of financial compensation, increased regulation possibilities and discretion of organizational information.

Appendix C

The Mini-Company

The mini-company concept originates from Suzaki (1993) and in the paper of De Leede & Looise (1999) it is transformed into a European concept of team-based work: STS design. “The structural basis of the mini-company is similar to the social technical view … complemented by the concept of client and supplier relationships“ (De Leede & Looise, 1999, p1194). The four characteristics of the mini-company (from De Leede & Looise, 1999):

1. The mini-company has a name and a mission statement. Both are formulated by the mini-company itself.

2. The mini-company identifies its clients and suppliers and is responsible for managing its relationships. While external clients and suppliers are not always appropriate for having direct contacts with the mini-company, the internal client-supplier relationships are in most cases suitable.

3. The mini-company is responsible for its own improvement programme. Based on its contacts with clients, suppliers and management, the mini-company is able to identify its weak points, which are due for improvement.

Appendix D

The four stages of Kuipers & de Witte (2005).

Stage 1: job enlargement

Hut and Molleman (1998) stated that ‘the team concentrates on the redundancy of functions’, and ‘multi-functionality’ is their motto. All members of the team must be able to perform the primary tasks of the team; in

the case of VLU, this means that all team members are able to rotate on all stations of their workflow, as we will describe later. Van Amelsvoort and Van Amelsvoort (2000) identified this phase as ‘technical proficiency’.

Stage 2: job enrichment

Hut and Molleman (1998) stated that the principal

characteristic of this stage is ‘minimal critical specification and the redesign of the control structure’. The greatest degree of delegation of control tasks is used here. The team takes over control tasks from their manager, as well as from supporting departments, such as quality and planning activities. Van Amelsvoort and Van Amelsvoort (2000) identified this phase as ‘managerial autonomy’.

Stage 3: co-operation

Appendix E

The activities of the different production lines

To create more insight in the activities of the different production lines that were used for the small internships, the activities are now explained.

Balloons

At the balloons department, balloons are produced that are used in the final product to widen the blood vessels by inflating them. There for a specialized material is used to literally blow a balloon out of tubing material. Then the balloon is folded to a diameter as small as possible. The different balloons are used in the assembly lines as components of the final product. Balloons are also produced for other production locations of Cordis.

Feeder parts

At the feeder parts department, injection molding of the hub’s (part of the catheter were the pump to inflate the balloon is connected to), extrusion of the body parts of the catheter and some production means (like tubes for transporting the product through the process) are made.

Coat & pack

In this department, the products are packed in their final packing. This is in cardboard boxes, plastic sleeves and other packing material. A coating is applied for better performance of the product.

The assembly lines (Maxi/savvy, Pro/P3, SDS)

In the assembly lines, the different parts of the product are assembled. Marker bands (for localizing the catheter when inserted into a human body by x-ray), the balloon and the body parts are all assembled with precision handwork and microscopes as tools.

TMS

Appendix F

Empowerment, autonomy and teams

Empowerment

Empowerment is a widely used term in literature and in management environments, while its implication and meaning can be different in each case. In the paper of Cooney (2004) different views about empowerment are discussed. Empowerment seen as a property of organizations, team and groups, or individual employees (Cooney, 2004). Besides these different views about who’s property it is, there are also different perspectives about empowerment. The perspective of management practice, organizational culture, employee participation and employee work motivation.

Kirkman and Rosen (1997) define empowerment as increased task motivation due to an individual’s positive orientation to his or her work role (in Cooney, 2004).

Attributes of an empowered team are a broadening of technical skills to perform a wider subset of team tasks (task enlargement), and self-management that will take over many operational responsibilities from managers and supervisors (Cooney, 2004). Womack (1996, p.120) stated this team work in lean manufacturing as (…)reorganize work by transferring indirect tasks to the primary work team(…). So empowerment in a lean manufacturing environment can be defined as: transferring indirect tasks to the work team.

Due to the differences in the view of empowerment, this research uses regulation possibilities as key term.

Autonomy

A team is a small group of people with complementary skills committed to a common purpose and set of specific performance goals (Katzenbach and Smith, 1994 p.21 in Cooney, 2004). From Van Amelsvoort & Scholtens (1994) (in Bastiaan, 2007) the definition of a self-steering team is: A permanent group of co-workers that are collective responsible for the total process of production of products for a internal or external customer. The team plans and monitors the process progress, solves problems and improves processes and work methods, without continuous use of management or support staff.

Team development

Regulation possibilities are the basis for self-steering and (semi)autonomous groups or teams. The paper of Van Amelsfoort & Benders (1996) describes the team development process in four stages; (1) bundling of individuals, (2) group, (3) team, (4) open team. In the fourth and final phase, the team can be seen as a mini-company (Van Amelsfoort & Benders, 1996).

The current organization around the production process at Cordis can be seen as a bundling of individuals. The next stage, the group stage, is where activities like maintenance, quality control, production planning, safety and dealing with absenteeism are transferred from managerial levels and supporting units to the shop floor employees (Van Amelsfoort & Benders, 1996).

In figure X, the distinction between the Japanese ‘han’ (a Japanese word for a small organizational unit) and the European SDWT (self-directed work teams) is shown for the qualitative and quantitative composition of the non-managerial tasks assigned to the team (task pool).

Figure X. The ‘task-culture’ matrix for teams.

Cordis situation

Appendix G

The deviation of the part-timers and the full time employees of the total production department at Cordis is shown in figure X.

Total

16

20

24

32

36

40

Figure X. The total deviation of part-timers and full time employees.

The numbers in the figure correspond to the hours in the contract. So employees with a 40 hour contract are called full time employees. Contracts with less than 40 hours (36, 32, 24, 20 or 16 hours) are called part-time employees. The total number or employees in the production department is 237 operators what corresponds to 188.5 FTE. Except for the 36 hour contracts (only two in total, or 0.8% of the total amount of employees) the other part-time contracts are about 11-14% of the total employees.

The deviation of the part-timers and the full time employees of the SDS production line is shown in figure X.

SDS