May 1945 - The war was winding down and the TWI representatives had received word from HQ that September would be the end of the TWI Service. Imagine that you receive the same news, how would you interpret it? Perhaps in the following way?
"The war has been won! There is no longer a need for standardization, training, methods improvement or shop floor leadership in our nations factories!
Lowell Mellen, a district representative out of the Cleveland, Ohio office had other plans. He landed a couple of contracts and was in business under the name TWI, Inc. For five years, Mellen and his consulting group spread the TWI J-programs throughout Northeast Ohio, Western Pennsylvania and New York.
In December 1950 TWI, Inc. won a contract bid to bring TWI to Japan. In spring of 1951, Mellen and three others deliverd the J-programs to over 400 Japanese supervisors.
In 1956, the Japanese government asked TWI, Inc. to provide problem solving training to members of the Japanese Industrial Training Association. Here you will find the very same manual that TWI, Inc. used in teaching Japanese supervisors how to solve problems in the workplace.
What this Problem Solving Training program is NOT:
- It is NOT designed to solve complex statistical problems,
- It is NOT designed to solve large complex problems spanning multiple disciplines, departments or locations,
- It is NOT designed for a select few, highly paid "go-to" problem solvers in the company.
What this Problem Solving Training program IS:
- It IS a simple and systematically similar to the kaizen system in Japan,
- It IS for the everyday, front-line leader who is knee-deep in a work process and must direct the work of others,
- It IS designed to work in unison with a simple suggestion program (kaizen teian) so everyone is engaged in improvment.
In short, this program was the next logical evolutionary step for the Training Within Industry J-programs used between 1942 and 1955. By combining the three skill needs: 1) how to instruct, 2) how to improve methods and 3) how to lead people into a PDCA framework - Mellen and staff provided the simple, proven foundation for a robust problem solving workforce in Japan.
