As GE Vernova prepares to stand up as a publicly traded company in April 2024, the company has laid out five central principles called the GE Vernova Way: “We drive Innovation in everything we do, serve our Customers with pride and focus, and operate with a Lean mindset, focusing on safety, quality, delivery, and cost, across our operations. We act as One Team with inclusivity, authenticity, and diversity, allowing us to win together, and are Accountable both individually and collectively to deliver on our purpose and commitments.”
As the wording makes clear, “lean” is more than a concept — it’s a mindset. Since it was introduced five years ago by Larry Culp, chairman and CEO of GE and CEO of GE Aerospace, lean has become a core part of the company’s culture, applied to all parts of the business to drive growth, innovation, sustainability, and results for its customers. It’s transformed the company’s performance, saving $1 billion in fixed costs for the Gas Power business, about $300 million in the Electrification segment, and some $500 million in the Onshore Wind business, among other improvements.
But what does lean look like in real life? One of the concepts at the heart of lean is kaizen, a Japanese term that means “continuous improvement.” During a kaizen, teams made up of management and frontline manufacturing employees gather for a week at “genba” — which means “the actual place” where the work gets done (think the production floor in a manufacturing setting). Combing through every aspect of a production or business process, each team spends the week hunting for ways to eliminate waste and create more value with fewer resources using data-driven, team-oriented, structured problem-solving. Taken together, those small tweaks and breakthrough big ideas add up to significant efficiency improvements that change the way business is done. And, in keeping with the true nature of continuous improvement, the work doesn’t stop there — kaizens happen regularly throughout the year.
“Every time I participate in a kaizen, I am reminded of the power of a “go and do it” attitude as teams work together to find, test, and implement ideas quickly,” said GE Vernova Chief Executive Officer Scott Strazik about the recent CEO Kaizen Week, which took place in February 2024. Here’s a look inside four kaizens from that week:
Stronger Winds in Schenectady
At the Onshore Wind business’s manufacturing service center in Schenectady, New York, where it builds critical components for the 6-megawatt workhorse wind turbine, teams met to identify safety risks, improve assembly component quality, and reduce the cost of labor hours, with an eye toward higher output rates. Currently, the Schenectady site produces five turbines in three months, but its goal is to integrate processes from the Wind business’s sites in Salzbergen, Germany, and Pensacola, Florida, to increase its average output to one unit a day.
“Their standard is our target,” said Vic Abate, chief technology officer of GE and CEO of the Wind business. Thanks to lean, the business has already eliminated 22 crane lifts, reduced direct applied labor hours by 530 hours, and reduced anticipated material transaction cycle time by 90%. “GE Vernova is committed to leading with lean in order to electrify and decarbonize the world,” said Gary Wiesner, manufacturing and lean operations leader at GE Vernova Onshore Wind.
Pursuing Perfection in Hungary
During the kaizen at the Gas Power Service Center in Veresegyház, Hungary — where hot gas path components are assembled and aeroderivative gas turbines are manufactured — teams focused on mapping out new safety measures, improving the efficiency of lean lines, growing manufacturing capacity, and reducing emissions for a faster path to net zero. By addressing safety issues in its hot gas components assembly line, the team was able to eliminate 12,000 crane lifts and reduce ergonomic issues to zero. By automating movements on the aeroderivative assembly line, they were able to significantly reduce lead time and increase on-time delivery by 50%, improve product consistency, and save $1.2 million annually.
“Seeing teams engage firsthand helped me appreciate how kaizen is a critical part of the GE Vernova Way,” said Maví Zingoni, CEO of the Power business. “Our teams accomplished more than I thought possible in such a short time.” These optimization changes will yield higher profitability, which will be critical to the growth of gas power technology in the energy transition. With those stakes, using lean is the best way to make every second count. “Lean is the relentless pursuit of perfection,” said Rodolfo Torres, manufacturing and lean operations leader for Gas Power. “Lean is the way we work.”
Staying Current in the U.K.
GE Vernova’s Electrification Systems businesses, which modernize the grid and help to bring more renewable energy online, are another critical piece of the energy transition. At the kaizen at the Grid Solutions site in Stafford, England, two teams mobilized to increase production capacity of power transformers used in the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity, and improve customer outcomes.
“You can’t underestimate the value of bringing teams together to focus on a single challenge or area for improvement,” said Philippe Piron, CEO of Electrification Systems. And indeed, the teams increased materials quality and set up a method for daily management to detect issues early. These changes are set to double Stafford’s output over the course of the year, in turn potentially increasing its revenue by 150% and enabling the site to meet the upcoming market demand. “These improvements will help us deliver on our commitments to our customers,” said Lynne Pearson-Brown, Grid Systems integration lean leader of Electrification Systems. “Lean helps us to drive out waste, enabling us to deliver on GE Vernova’s KPIs [key performance indicators] around growth and decarbonization.”
New Capabilities from Cambridge
But we can’t electrify the world without the right tools. The Electrification Software business “provides software solutions that help our customers provide affordable, reliable, and sustainable power across the value chain, from production to delivery to consumption,” said Linda Rae, general manager of power generation and oil and gas electrification software. At GE Vernova headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Electrification Software team is getting ready to launch and ramp a new product with new capabilities in 2024.
As their main focus during Kaizen Week, the team designed a new account-based marketing program to drive demand for the new product and create a sales pipeline, making it easier to get this innovative new product to everyone who will want it. And they’re using lean to make these improvements in a sustainable way. “Lean helps us maximize the impact and the focus of our resources on those core problems around electrification and decarbonization that our customers are struggling with,” said Rae. Lean is “a focus on sustainable improvement in everything that we do.”
By gathering colleagues from every level and taking time to examine everyday processes, each of these sites discovered ways to improve their workflows, reduce the waste, eliminate costs, and, in so doing, drive more of the innovation that has been GE’s hallmark for more than 140 years. Lean isn’t just about one kaizen. It’s how GE Vernova works every day. “Kaizens are intense, but finite,” said Strazik. “Sustaining the improvements is where the real work begins and is the true test of success.”