BMW Empowers its Way to Mini Performance

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development in Great Britain awarded its 2003 People Management Award to BMW after the carmaker instituted a change program to adopt best practices, merge work cultures, and create the new Mini automobile at a plant of 4,000 workers. The core element was "the creation of hundreds of 'self-steered' teams of between eight and 15 people" called "Wings" (short for "Working in Groups").

"Wings teams have been given the power to tackle production problems themselves…(and) members also now rotate tasks within their area… In addition, rather than being management-led, the focus is now on initiative and self-management, and employees have received external training and coaching in working as part of a team." The HR director said a lot of responsibility was shifted from management to production teams. This "placed continuous improvement and the achievement of plant improvement targets directly into the hands of the team members." One person on each team was shifted to half-time production work so the remaining hours can go to "developing their team members and the way their team operates." And every two weeks, the round-the-clock plant shuts down for 45 minutes for team meetings. To emphasize and reinforce management support for the approach, managers and directors spend time on the production line.

Three years later, the head of the car body production line says, people are more enthusiastic, open to sharing ideas, and better informed, and "conversations are no longer negative..." Quantifiable results are equally strong: "Production targets during 2002 were exceeded by more than 60 percent and those changes have contributed to savings of more than £6.3M during the past 12 months." Source: Watkins, J. (03), "A Mini Adventure," People Management 9(22): 30.