Acme Mineral Mine

Acme made teams with an objective to solve problems with morale and productivity at its Wichita plant. These teams were made of geologists, geophysicists and engineers, and the other half was the company's underground extracting operations composed of skilled and semi-skilled laborers. The two sides fought regularly.

Suzanne Howard was hired to create a program to progress efficiency and morale at the plant. Donald Peterson, a long time Acme member of staff who was highly respected and was looking for a final challenging project before retirement decided to lead the Wichita pilot project.

There were three efficient groups at the plant: operations, the below ground group, and the above ground group. Howard and Peterson determined that the first step was to get these diverse groups chatting and sharing ideas. They started a monthly problem chat. To begin with, not too many people came but gradually, more and more people started attending. After about 6 months, they had lively problem-solving discussions that led to many improvements.

"Selecting a problem and implementing a tailored solution" was introduced next. These were ad hoc