Lean Culture Change at Steinway & Sons

Steinway & Sons’ Story

Often­times, orga­ni­za­tions find them­selves spend­ing their work­days deal­ing with unfore­seen prob­lems, and putting out metaphor­i­cal fires. The team at Stein­way & Sons knew there had to be a bet­ter way. They turned to Gem­ba Acad­e­my to start to re-write their 160-year man­u­fac­tur­ing cul­ture with a lean focus. As a result, the man­u­fac­tur­ing team and union work­force have now devel­oped process man­age­ment skills, and are iden­ti­fy­ing and fix­ing dead­ly wastes. Man­age­ment is see­ing improve­ments in qual­i­ty scores, pro­duc­tion times, and a reduc­tion in down­time. Lean cham­pi­ons con­tin­ue to devel­op and step up to make improve­ments, in turn increas­ing their own suc­cess and help­ing the com­pa­ny meet its objectives. 

Not only do lean man­u­fac­tur­ing skills apply in day-to-day oper­a­tions, but they also can help over­come unfore­seen events. After Stein­way & Sons had to shut down oper­a­tions due to COVID-19, they were able to uti­lize their skills learned through Gem­ba Acad­e­my to restart pro­duc­tion and ramp up quick­ly, safe­ly, and with the high­est qual­i­ty stan­dards that they are known for.