Aaron Haynes

Aaron Haynes
Intralox Baltimore
Baltimore County
https://www.intralox.com

Continuous Improvement is the cornerstone of our Laitram/Intralox Business Philosophy.  Execution , which is crucial in continuous improvement because it transforms plans and strategies into tangible results, often gets overlooked. It is not the glamorous element of CI but execution drives sustainability which is truly the most difficult phase of CI . It is where the proverbial “rubber meets the road.” Execution not only requires process development and improvement but also getting the best out of our most important resource – Our People.

It is within the execution realm that Aaron Haynes – Materials Management/Assembly Manager for Intralox Baltimore - excels .

Over the past 4 years Intralox Operations has grown exponentially as a manufacturing operation fueled by the expansion of E-Commerce. Our ability to support this rapid growth required that we transition from a batch production to the single piece continuous flow approach . This required world class inventory management processes. Aaron was the leader who led the  process development , standardization and implementation of our inventory practices. He accomplished this by living the Plan, Do, Check, Act approach and updating our systems to include the latest tools and technologies for inventory management. He also recognized that tools and technologies are  only as good as the people using them. He created an inventory management team to manage and control these inventory practices. His Materials Management Team was the first to embrace skill assessments and utilize those assessments to develop work instructions and best practices to train his teammates. These assessments also proved to be a road map to get the “right teammates” in the critical roles.  This created what we call “three circles”  wins ( What the business needs/What the teammate is good at/What the teammate is passionate about) situations for frontline teammate and frontline leader development. The combination of People Development and Process Improvement resulted in inventory accuracy improving from 80% to 98%+ accuracy over a sustained 18 month time line. These processes have become Best Practices across all Baltimore Operations sites.

Aaron also was instrumental in implementing the parts flow pull system for smooth throughput and elimination of waste in supplying parts to the assembly lines. This was a major change for the materials management operation but Aaron delivered on this challenge by assessing the current state , defined locations for parts on the line and supporting the implementation of the Land stock approach. Additionally the site implemented the AndOn system process to provide visual cues for driving the timing for parts delivery. These improvements were a critical to our transition from a batch production to the single piece continuous flow operations .

As important as these process changes are it is Aaron’s skill at combining Continuous improvement with his Leadership and change management ability that sets him apart and makes him worthy of recognition as a Maryland Manufacturing Star.