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Sweetheart Cup Company always has been associated with fun products--fast food containers, straws, ballpark drink glasses, and maybe the most fun of all--ice cream cones! But making these products of pleasantry at times has not been as festive as it would seem. Sweetheart Cup Company has had its ups and downs in terms of many of the typical manufacturing measurements, but in 1994--under the direction of newly appointed Chief Operating Officer Bill McLaughlin--Sweetheart Cup Company embarked on a new mission. This time everyone would be involved, from headquarters staff in Owings Mills to the fourth-floor oven area workers in the Dallas bakery. The new process goal, "Business Excellence," as we called it, was really an implementation of Class A ERP/MRP II.

This is a case study on the effect of training and teamwork in two different divisions within the same company. One division consisted of a nonunion manufacturing plant; the second was a unionized distribution operation. In both operations, serious problems existed--poor customer service levels, inadequate inventory turns, and insufficient profitability. These are the kinds of problems that, left untreated, can cause the death of any manufacturing or distribution operation. However, by implementing training and teamwork at both operations, impressive benefits were achieved, including customer service levels exceeding 90 percent, dramatic improvements in the inventory turnover rate, and profitability that exceeded corporate goals.

Empowering and guiding the team has become crucial to the long-term success of any business. Today, an important measurement for leaders is their ability to facilitate a group of people to work together as a team and successfully accomplish their task. What will separate a good leader from a great leader will be the understanding and development of his or her facilitation skills.

In the traditional view of the world, leaders cause change by affecting the behavior of others. This can happen in any of a number of ways. Some leaders use power and authority. Others use influence and persuasion. Still others lead by example. The key concept to remember is that the real need for change is in behavior. Effective change requires a change in behavior.

Although there are many definitions of a team and teamwork, Amgen, Inc., has defined a team as "a dynamic group of diverse people with common objectives but different responsibilities that is chartered with improving a process, a product or a service." Teamwork constitutes a blending of team dynamics with partnership; thus a new term was created to define teamwork at Amgen--"teamship."

This article will review the case in which a medium-sized manufacturing facility in upstate New York underwent the transition to a team-based environment. As with any change, this transition involved a decision process, a design process, and an implementation process. The transition took place gradually over a period of several years, allowing each stage to be studied in some detail. The degree to which these approaches are applicable to an organization will depend in part on how similar that organization is to the study facility; therefore, this article will begin with a background discussion of the nature of that facility.

Teams are not the only option an organization has. There are four types of solutions that an organization could use in response to a challenge. The organization could buy a solution, could hire an external consultant to develop a solution, could use an internal consultant to develop a solution, or an organization can bring the power of a team to develop a solution. Each of these solutions has strengths and weaknesses, and the right one must be selected. It isn't always teams!

Customers are the lifeblood of any organization. Without them, it loses its meaning and purpose. Customers provide incentive, vitality, and growth. Serving them well requires a customer-focused culture and a customer-friendly system. It also requires unrelenting effort toward continuous improvement, but the rewards are well worth the effort: unflinching customer loyalty, sustainable growth, and impressive performance.

Our nation's industries do not want for concepts, philosophies or ideas to improve effectiveness. Just-in-Time, continuous improvement, re-engineering, world-class manufacturing, time compression, manufacturing excellence, total quality control, and theory of constraints are examples of approaches to improving our businesses. All have merit and are, to some degree, related.

An excellent starting point for exercising creativity is the area of problem solving. With a bag of creative problem solving tools and techniques, problems will no longer represent setbacks but instead, opportunities to introduce innovations that will support the company's initiative of continuous improvement.