Volume 4, Number 4
November 1996
The CTD Change Team is in the next critical phase of the Carrier 2000 process, the Design Phase. This month Change Team member Joan Pierce discusses her experiences, the next steps in the Design Phase, and her views about the future of Carrier Transicold.
Being a part of the Change Team has been and continues to be an extraordinary experience. It has enabled me to travel around the world and immerse myself in different cultures in order to gain the perspective needed to better understand our customers and their markets. The Team's travels also allowed me to examine the various cultures where my fellow CTD employees live and work.
A key focus of the Change Team will be to empower all the employees of Carrier Transicold around the world, so that the company functions with input from every sector of the organization. I believe all of us, as employees, want to contribute to making ours a great company. What the Change Team really wants to change are those things that prevent people from contributing to their fullest.
During the Carrier 2000 Definition and Analysis Phase over the summer, it became evident to the Change Team that our people around the world are running into roadblocks that inhibit our performance, our customer satisfaction and our own job satisfaction. Certainly, all companies have their own roadblocks - the great ones aggressively do something to address them. At a Definition and Analysis Conference involving the Change Team, CTD's Leadership Team and 40 CTD managers from around the world, we reviewed 15 key findings concerning what we need to do better, and agreed strongly on five main areas of focus for redesign. These are the major roadblocks we must remove, and your supervisor will be communicating to you about them.
In the Design Phase between now and January, the Change Team will again meet with our employees, customers and suppliers to design new business processes that take away our five most critical roadblocks. We'll research how other outstanding companies have addressed these issues, and find and share best practices from both inside and outside CTD. Using the input of our people around the world, we'll make recommendations on how we need to change to Randy Hogan and his staff, as well as to managers from the APO, ETO, LAO and NAO regions. Once we have agreement on the key recommendations, we'll communicate them to all employees before moving on to the Implementation Planning Phase in March-April.
The Change Team was given the task of working with CTD's associates to prepare this company for business in the next millennium. A key factor in this will be ensuring that the voices of all CTD employees around the globe are not only heard but responded to. Employees of Carrier Transicold must be assured that they have the freedom to think, and that they're encouraged to offer input when they see a way that something can be done better. That's the only kind of work environment that can make change a positive factor, and it represents the way we need to be to reach our goals for customer and employee satisfaction, and improved financial performance.
When I started with Carrier Transicold in the drafting department 19 years ago, the technology we used was limited. Drafting was done "on the board" with the help of manual drafting tools. Today, sophisticated applications such as ProEngineer are run on workstations. The corporate culture was also different from how it is today - we were almost completely a U.S. company. Our organization had to learn and grow over the years, but the pace of change is getting faster and we have to adapt. In order to be a world-class company, CTD must be like a living entity that learns, adapts and evolves to trends and factors in the marketplace. Employees and managers must relearn how to work, and all parts of the company worldwide must act with a unified focus.
It is my hope that in the future there will be little difference between employees and managers. The corporate culture will be more like that of a sports team, with all players working together, and the supervisory relationship will be more like coaching than directing.
A driving motivation for the members of the Change Team is the team itself. Carrier as a whole needs to be like this, where employees feed off the energy of the other employees around them. If we fail to accomplish this, we will simply be promoting the status quo.
As a Change Team member and CTD employee, I'm looking forward to the day when we achieve our vision, and the results are reflected in employee and customer satisfaction and the financial results of Carrier Transicold.
For the Carrier 2000 program to work, every employee, on all levels, worldwide, must act as a member of the Change Team. Please exercise your membership by contacting us with your thoughts by phone, or by cc:Mail at the "ChangeTeam" address.
Joan Pierce
Member, CTD Change Team
Team Achievements
A summary of recent good news
Truck & Trailer's Genesis( multi-temp product family, already selling successfully in Europe, was introduced to the North American market at the National American Wholesale Grocers Association (NAWGA) Show in Miami Beach, Florida, last month. The response from grocery and food distribution companies was enthusiastic, as Genesis provides the most flexible means of configuring truck and trailer compartments for customers who must efficiently transport products at a variety of temperatures. According to Rod Howell, multi-temp product manager, Genesis addresses customers' growing need to increase utilization of their trucks and trailers, and reduces their labor costs by allowing more efficient cargo loading and unloading.
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CTD Marine Systems recently teamed with Syracuse's TR-1 plant and Maersk Lines to meet a tight customer delivery schedule and export three model 17EX marinized chillers. Each weighing over 33 tons, these large packaged units required special handling and routing by Maersk to arrive on time at an Italian shipyard. They will be installed aboard Holland American Lines' new flagship, the Rotterdam VI.
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A container service engineering seminar was held in Hong Kong for personnel from Hong Kong, Australia, China and Singapore. The meeting objectives were to upgrade our service capabilities and coordinate our Asian after- market support program.
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Significant wins for CTD's global documentation and standardization initiative were achieved in October at the York plant. Using a new process, the design group has already implemented 26 change requests, and the plant has also assigned global part numbers to three recently created components. The global, nine-digit part numbering system was implemented in Rouen October 19.
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The Athens plant was awarded the Georgia Dept. of Safety Award for Excellence, which is given to companies that have worked 250 or more days without a lost-time injury or illness. CTD Athens was selected as having the "best safety program in the state for large size [over 300 employees] companies."
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Bus customer MCI introduced its new E-Series coach featuring Carrier Transicold equipment October 23 at the American Bus Association meeting in Hawaii. CTD participated in this high-profile new product introduction as a major contributor to the bus's development.
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In China, Wall's/Unilever placed an order for 145 of our Vatna eutectic refrigeration units. This was the largest single truck refrigeration order in China this year, and was won over aggressive competition from Thermo King. Strong customer relations, responsiveness to product issues from CTD APO and the global product team, and a product offering that targeted Wall's critical operational issues were instrumental in landing the order.
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Sales activity is strong in ETO Truck & Trailer, now under the direction of Jean-Pierre Levrey, who joined CTD in September from Volvo, where he served as vice president of franchise and organization development for Volvo Cars, Europe.
Designing the FutureYour suggestions for ways to change our major business processes are welcomed by the Change Team. Please call the team at 315/432-3404 or use the "ChangeTeam" address on cc:Mail. Submit news items for The Globe to Anthony D'Angelo, CTD Communications, Tel. 315/433-4750, FAX 315/432-7683.
