Raymond Floyd, Lean pioneer in the chemical-processing industry
2011 IW Manufacturing Hall of Fame Inductee
Retired Exxon Mobil Corp. executive Raymond Floyd is recognized as one of the earliest adopters of lean principles in the North American chemical-processing industry. But it's his legacy as an adapter of lean principles that has left such an indelible mark on process manufacturing.
In a sector that has been slow to bring lean methodologies into the fold, Floyd distilled lean to its basic elements and constructed a new version that would work for the chemical industry and other process manufacturers.
Leading six different businesses -- including some of the world's largest industrial sites as well as global multiplant operations -- during his 24-year career at Exxon, Floyd was "instrumental" in creating a culture "that fully embraced lean," says former Exxon Chemical President and CEO Gene McBrayer.
"Ray and his team demonstrated how lean principles like just-in-time and single-minute-exchange-of-dies are equally applicable to continuous chemical-manufacturing processes as they are to durable-goods manufacturing," McBrayer says, noting that as Floyd implemented lean at Exxon's operations, its performance metrics improved dramatically.
Key to Floyd's success in adapting lean to the chemical industry has been his ability to engage workers in continuous-improvement cultures. As the site manager of Exxon's Baytown, Texas, manufacturing complex -- a 1993 IndustryWeek Best Plants winner -- Floyd championed an innovative awareness program called Diversity Pioneers. The program challenged "the prevailing white-male culture to begin valuing differences in people," McBrayer says, and produced marked improvements in employee performance and engagement.
"At Baytown, Ray and his key leaders turned the entire 2,000-person workforce into an improvement-idea-generating machine," McBrayer says.
Diversity Pioneers and other lean operating practices that Floyd championed not only served as a template for Mobil plants as they integrated into the Exxon system during the epic 1999 merger, but they also have been replicated throughout Exxon and the global energy industry.
Floyd, now a vice president at Calgary, Alberta-based Suncor Energy, has written two books about lean in the process industries. In August, his second book -- "Liquid Lean: Developing Lean Culture in the Process Industries" -- earned a 2012 Shingo Research and Professional Publications Award.
