What follows is a brief introduction and overview of Total Welding Management. It will answer questions such as: What is Total Welding Management? What are the benefits that can be expected from its implementation? How did it get started? What are its underlying principles? What are the steps to implementation? How do I get started?
More of the technical details of the Total Welding Management System using the Barckhoff Method and its management principles can be found in the publication, Total Welding Management, Executive Summary, which can be obtained at no charge by clicking here. The complete details of Total Welding Management, along with an actual company case study, are presented in the book Total Welding Management, written by Jack R. Barckhoff, P.E., and published by the American Welding Society. The book is available from our publication distributor through a link on the Home page of this website.
What is Total Welding Management?
In the introduction of Jack R. Barckhoff’s book, Total Welding Management, it is defined as a system focused on improvement. It includes management principles, and a planning process with a structured approach. When adopted by a company, it can help improve welding quality and productivity, thus helping the company become more competitive and more profitable. Total Welding Management is fundamentally a company-wide management system designed to effectively manage and control all of the functions and activities involved in producing welded products, from design to shipment, for consistent quality and optimum productivity.
Total Welding Management:
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Is based on a set of values, concepts, and management principles that must be followed to be successful. |
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Provides a method to identify, quantify, and harvest the total potential for welding improvement in your company. |
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Provides a structure to manage improvement projects to assure results. |
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Requires the focus of key company resources on serving the welders to achieve welding quality and productivity improvement. |
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Includes a management reporting and control system to identify deviations from defined performance standards so that timely corrective action can be taken when required. |
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Provides a process for continuous improvement in welding quality and productivity. |
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Requires managerial, technical, and welding skills training for everyone involved in welding. |
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Marries the art and science of welding with sound management principles to form an integrated management system. |
What are some of the benefits from Total Welding Management?
The successful implementation of Total Welding Management in a company will result in several types of benefits both financial and organizational as well as market.
Some examples of financial results:
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A barge builder with 450 welders saved millions of dollars per year |
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A hospital bed manufacturer with 150 welders saved millions, significantly reduced warranty costs and met FDA compliance requirements |
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A fan manufacturer with 56 welders saved over one million dollars a year |
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A mining machinery manufacturer with 88 welder saved over a million dollars or $13,000 per welder per year |
| A truck manufacturer saved over $3 million a year by adopting the philosophy of Total Welding Management throughout their entire company’s operations |
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Another barge builder with 150 welders had a potential savings of $5.5 million per year or $36,000 per welder |
Over many years, many surveys and many different industries, the typical cost savings have ranged from $15,000 per welder per year to $25,000 per welder per year.
The implementation of Total Welding Management also brings about cultural change in most organizations with some additional benefits.
Organizational benefits include:
| More effective teamwork |
| More focus on quality |
| Development of problem solving skills |
| More focus by all on company goals rather than individual goals |
| A formal management system for all areas of the company |
| More focus on planning and less on reacting |
| Improved employee attitude and individual self-esteem leading to better company-wide morale |
| A better place to work |
| Objective performance measures |
Total Welding Management has brought benefits to a company’s marketing and sales departments to help grow the company.
Marketing benefits include:
| More competitive costs |
| Higher quality and more consistent products |
| More production capacity to handle additional sales |
| Shorter production lead times |
| Fewer customer complaints |
| More focus of marketing rather than reacting |
All of the above benefits have been achieved by many companies through the successful implementation and management of their Total Welding Management system.
How did Total Welding Management get started?
Total Welding Management was born on the welding shop floor more than forty years ago, when Jack R Barckhoff, as a young sales engineer, worked with welders to help them improve the quality of their welding and their productivity, by teaching them about the science of welding and training them in better welding techniques.
It was also born out of the frustration that Jack experienced when working with welders and the realization that the welder and welding crew needed a lot of support from other departments within the company, such as design engineering, methods, maintenance, supervision and others, to be able to do their jobs more effectively. Jack found that this support was often lacking, so he began to develop what is now Total Welding Management as the management system that focuses all key company resources on serving the welder. Thirty plus years later, those beginning principles and the system are now known as Total Welding Management and are still being used to help companies achieve improved welding quality and productivity.
What are the underlying principles of Total Welding Management?
Total Welding Management is grounded in a set of fundamental values, beliefs and concepts about welding, welders, management, teamwork and management systems. In order for Total Welding Management to be an effective management system for your welding operations, these values, beliefs and concepts must be understood and practiced by management as well as by all members of the organization that affect welding. If they are not, then Total Welding Management will not deliver consistently improved welding quality and productivity.
Beliefs about welders
Jack Barckhoff and now Team Barckhoff have experienced that all welders are proud of their work, are eager to learn and change, and want to be held accountable for their quality and productivity. Through proper training, support and feedback, provided by the Total Welding Management system using the Barckhoff Method, thousands of welders have demonstrated significant improvement in their performance and have been very proud of their improved results and eager to learn more.
Beliefs about welding
In Jack’s early years of working with managers, he experienced that many felt welding was more of an art than a science and therefore could not be managed, measured or controlled, and that its success was solely in the hands of the individual welder who knew the ‘art of welding’.
The reality is that welding is a highly engineered science with all welding processes clearly engineered for optimum performance. The engineering body of knowledge for welding is vast and covers all aspects of the welding process from design through production and quality assurance. Through the application of this scientific welding data to all aspects of welding in your welding operations, significant improvements in welding quality and productivity can be achieved.
Total Welding Management marries the science of welding with sound management principles, resulting in your company's own welding management system. The welding process can be controlled and managed as any other manufacturing process. For example, in machining you control the removal of metal with precision, in welding you can add weld metal with precision.
The Upside Down Organization
A fundamental concept underlying Total Welding Management is the Upside Down Organization. This concept turns the traditional company organization chart upside down, with the CEO now at the bottom and the welder at the top. What this means is that from the CEO down, all members of the organization that are involved in welding, be it design engineering, manufacturing engineering, supervisors, purchasing, maintenance, personnel, or quality assurance, need to focus their welding related activities on supporting the welder so that he can be successful in achieving quality and productivity improvements.
This concept of the Upside Down Organization is much different than traditional hierarchical organizations in which functional departments are separated and tend to work independently. It is often difficult to get them to work together, and even more difficult to get them to support production employees. Functional departments become support under Total Welding Management.
Total Welding Management requires this type of teamwork and management leadership to be successful. Organization members must view their job as serving the welder, and executive management must set the expectation and provide the leadership through example and involvement in the process of change. Without acceptance of and living the Upside Down Organization, a Total Welding Management will not work.
Closed Loop Feedback System
At the shop floor management level, Total Welding Management uses a closed loop feedback system to manage the daily production of the welders or welding crews. This concept, based on the principle of the Upside Down Organization, takes welder support to the shop floor operating level. Whenever there is a situation that is experienced by the welder or welding crew that deviates from the plan, a resource (or support function) is called in to analyze the situation, determine the root cause, and respond with appropriate corrective action back to the welder, so that planned production can be resumed.
It is essential to any effective management system that it be closed loop and responsive when deviations to plan occur. The principle of a serving organization supporting the welder must be accepted by every organization member for this to be effective.
Top Management Leadership
The implementation of Total Welding Management represents a cultural change in most organizations in the way welding operations are managed. It also requires a commitment of resources for education and training of all personnel involved in welding both in the managerial aspects of the system and the technical aspects of welding.
Only top executives of the company can make these resource commitments and provide the visible involvement and leadership required to get people to see their jobs differently and change the way they do them.
Total Welding Management also requires teamwork, goals and a plan for change, which only the top executive of the company can provide.
Every project that Barckhoff Welding Management has been involved in where top management was committed and involved has been successful. Where it was lacking, long lasting success was not accomplished.
The Four Concepts
The design of the Total Welding Management system is based on four key concepts about workers, personal responsibility, quality and training. They are fundamental to the day-to-day operation of the system.
- Each person will manage his own area within company guidelines.
- Drive responsibility and decision making to the lowest level possible.
- Each person will inspect and guarantee his own work.
- Training is a management responsibility.
For a successful Total Welding Management system, a company’s top management must accept responsibility that these four concepts are understood and practiced by all members of the organization.
What are the steps to Implementation of Total Welding Management?
Total Welding Management is implemented using a three-phased process known as the Barckhoff Method. This method has been used for over twenty-five years to successfully implement Total Welding Management in many different companies.
The three phases or steps to implementation are:
| Phase I-Survey and Evaluation. |
In this first phase, our team of consulting engineers survey all aspects of your welding operations using the methodology that we have developed which focuses on Five Key Results Areas, or major responsibilities for each of the Four Critical Functions or major supporting departments for each of the Five Welding Do’s or Goals for welding improvement. Our engineers gather data about your entire welding operations by interviewing key personnel, reviewing records and observing welding on the shop floor. This phase takes about three to five days and results in a comprehensive and detailed report that identifies and quantifies, in both labor hours and dollars, your company’s potential savings opportunities along with the actions and projects required to realize those savings.
| Phase II-Management Planning and Goal Setting. |
This is the critical planning step to Total Welding Management. Once the formal report from the Phase I Survey and Evaluation has been submitted to top management and evaluated by him and his team, a two to three day planning session is held. In this session Barckhoff consulting engineers along with the top management team, reviews the report for any clarifications, selects from the report a set of starting goals with their associated projects and action plans, estimates resources required, selects resources to meet projects and action plans selected, assigns tasks and responsibilities to individuals, develops a project plan Gantt Chart, and assigns a project manager. The Management Planning and Goal Setting process ultimately determines how successful your company will be in harvesting the improvements identified in the Survey and Evaluation report. To be successful, this planning process must be led by top management and requires open discussion of all issues.
| Phase III-Implement and Sustain. |
The focus and goal of this final phase of implementation is for top management and his management team to become knowledgeable and comfortable with the management tools and training that is put in place to manage their welding operations. During this phase the ongoing management system is put in place so that all the gains in welding quality and productivity are sustained and improved over time. This phase implements all the projects and actions plans developed and agreed to in Phase II and monitors them to assure timely completion.
How do I get started?
If your company has welding as a core process, request a copy of Total Welding Management, Executive Summary by clicking here to email us.
If you would like us to contact you, click here to email us.