CASE ANALYSIS

Batesville Casket Company

Batesville Casket Company

Introduction

Batesville Casket Company is a subsidiary of Hillenbrand Industries, Inc., a diversified holding company headquartered in the small southern Indiana town of Batesville. Other Hillenbrand subsidiaries include American Tourister, Inc., a major U.S. luggage manufacturer; Medeco Security Locks, a leading producer of high security locks; Hill-Rom Company, the leading U.S. producer of electric hospital beds, patient room furniture, and patient handling equipment; SSI Medical Services, a leading provider of wound care and other therapy units and services; Block Medical, a leading producer of home infusion therapy products; and Forethought, an insurance company that offers specialized funeral planning products through funeral homes.

At this Batesville facility, which houses nearly 1,000 primary production assets, Doll's department of multi-craft professionals keeps the pressure in check. Uptime on the 300,000-square-foot plant floor is exceptionally high. As a result, quality and first-pass yield are high. Lost cycles and returns are very low.

The Batesville maintenance organization is transparent to the customer. They have no clue who George Doll, Butch Flaspohler or any of the 32 other department associates is, and that's good. However, co-workers in the plant and the 123-year-old corporation are aware of the team's contributions to system reliability, product flow, daily continuous improvement, lean operations and a glowing reputation within industry. And, that's good.

Maintenance and reliability excellence was a factor in the site winning an IndustryWeek Best Plants award in 2006 and a regional title in the Association for Manufacturing Excellence's 2007 competition for top-performing plants.

DNA and Dissection

Batesville is the No. 1 casket maker in America ($659 million in sales in 2006), and it's been on top for a long, long time. The company pins its success to an environment built on continuous improvement.

"Change has been a part of Batesville's culture for 123 years. It's in our DNA," says Dennis. "We have this burning desire to make things better."

Whether it relates to equipment, processes, products or logistics, the company can't stop tinkering.

"We'll look at something and say, 'Overall, it's working well. But what isn't working well?' We'll peel back the onion and look at the non-value-added components," says Dennis. "Many companies would say, 'That's working well. Why break it?' We don't approach it that way. We really want to get better every year. It takes that kind of attitude. Sometimes it is painful, but it is what makes us special."

The reason is simple: You can be proactive and see the opportunities that reside in change, or be reactive and be forced into change as the result of internal or external pressures. It's a matter of control. Control the plant assets, or they will control you.

Change and continuous improvement are formalized in the company's lean manufacturing and reliability enhancement initiatives. Woven together nearly two decades ago, the bonds grow stronger every year.

"Lean and reliability go hand in hand," says Doll. "To be lean, you have to run your production line in a flowing nature. If you have unplanned downtime or breakdowns, it interrupts the ...