Today was the Little Guy factory tour and I love visiting manufacturing plants where they build stuff. Today was cool for a couple reasons. First, the Amish are building these small travel trailers and being one to instantly generalize, the idea of Amish doing anything but driving teams of mules across bucolic meadows on sunny summer afternoons with cute bonneted (word?) children skipping along beside intrigues me. But Amish with nail guns? The second reason is that for 30 years I have designed products and seen them go into manufacturing and so understand how it works. The third, and completely unfair reason is that I was curious if they were doing "
lean manufacturing" like Toyota (cue heavens parting and choruses of lean sensei's singing hallelujah), who are the gods of lean. My brother and I toured the Toyota plant in Kentucky this spring and saw how the big boys do it (and it is inspiring).
So for me today was Toyota in one corner of the ring (visualize smiling sumo wrestler guy), and Amos Oder (gotta feed the 'orse, yah) in the other corner to duke it out for the
Shingo Prize (annual prize for most lean company).
What we found were not very lean folks, but a very family or maybe community oriented company making really high quality products. Amish men (bearded and not) and women (long modest dresses and caps, no beards) were working at the making and assembling of these small trailers. The trailers were NOT pulled through the factory with Donkeys as my brother expected. The guy giving the tour was an older man, very open and patient with our small group of 7 people. He was indeed the classic Amish guy. They make everything but the metal parts (steel frames and aluminum sub-assemblies) and they can make about 10 per day. Like Toyota (and this may be the only thing) they have a tight, small 3 dimensional plant where people upstairs make sub-assemblies and feed them downstairs to the main lines (they have 2 lines). Amos (I did not actually catch his name but he looks like and Amos) showed us their new building across the valley that was many times bigger than where they are now (they hope to move by New Years). They have grown so fast, they are packed like sardines in their current space, and I smiled, remembering NRG Systems just before moving into the "big house", when we were also packed tight in a little metal, poorly insulated box. But some of my best memories were those "tight times" working with "our family". So great tour and wonderful folks (and no donkeys).
So we next decided to go find the genealogy center that a guy named Franklin Miller started in Mt Vernon. Rumor has it he spent 70 years doing Miller genealogy and wrote a few books. So off to Mt Vernon, but we went way south to enjoy more Amish farms in the valleys, and then west on Rt 39, which the map says was "scenic" which was just sort of ok. At Mt Vernon we found the genealogy center but it was only open 2 days a week, and today was not one of those days. So heck with that and headed west to push as far west under the incoming storm (hoping it would go over us tonight). But I then thought that we should go back and check the Mt Vernon library we visited last spring to see if maybe they had Franklin's book. The good news was, they indeed had a copy, the bad news was that all those Millers were German and not related in any way shape or form to us.
So, back on the road west to the storm. We stopped for lunch at a really strange diner (that served breakfast all day by the way), where the "dining room" had not a single window in it, the large table next to us had 6 or 7 guys playing poker (for money), and you pay the bill in cash, no receipt and no meals tax. You figure it out??
And hour or 2 later we saw the storm, got "spit on" by the clouds, put our rain gear on, sun back out, rain gear off, then more rain, rain gear back on, then a lot of rain, then decided to quit for the day in Lima OH. Hotel is ok, but there is some kind of Elks gathering, and it's Friday night, and they sell beer here, so it may be a noisy night. Showers to knock the sweat off and cool off, then dinner and bed.
In the morning we see where we stand with the rain. Bikes are running perfectly and can't wait for more road tomorrow. Indiana here we come (I think).
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