The Awesome Power of Employee Engagement: Philips Respironics

Eric Kulikowski, Director of North American Operations for Philips Respironics presents the employee engagement programs launched and the results achieved at their two western Pennsylvania manufacturing sites over the most recent three years. A people-centric culture has been established and is built on the three pillars of Pride & Passion, Sense of Family and Pursuit of Excellence. Learn about multiple ways to engage all employees in an organization resulting in everyone being a competent and motivated problem solver. The presentation uses real world examples to display the approach and results to date. All of the tools used are designed to be implemented at the grassroots level and are simple and visual in nature. And the use of these tools has improved performance dramatically -- 48% decrease in human errors, 26% increase in productivity, 46% drop in backorders and a 53% increase in morale all just in the past 12 months. Continuous improvement has become woven into the fabric of the culture at Philips Respironics.

In This Presentation You Will See

A bit about Philips Respironics (in minute 3)
Why employees should make decisions (in minute 14)
The crossroads Philips was at (in minute 18)
How the IW Best Plants application was used as their own benchmarking tool (in minute 19)
The goals chosen (in minute 22)
The exchange team (in minute 25)
The "Stall Street Journal" (in minute 28)
Philips recycling program (in minute 29)
How they measure performance with QCDSM (in minute 41)
Employee incentives to be on the Change Team (in minute 52)
and more

About the Speaker

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Eric Kulikowski, Director of North American Operations, Philips RespironicsEric Kulikowski is the Senior Director of North American Operations for Philips Respironics in Murrysville, Pennsylvania. In this role, he is responsible for the overall operational management of two manufacturing facilities that produce life support, respiratory, home monitoring, sleep therapy, infant developmental care and critical care medical devices. He also defines and executes the lean and continuous-improvement strategies for Philips Home Healthcare Solutions.

Kulikowski joined Philips Respironics in 1990 as a product development leader, and in 1993 assumed the position of Manager of Purchasing for the manufacturing operation. In June 1997, he transitioned into the position of Demand Flow Technology (DFT) Implementation Leader and was responsible for the definition, execution and management of demand-based manufacturing. In March 1998, Kulikowski accepted the position of Plant Manager for Respironics Colorado in Westminster, Colorado and assumed the role of Plant Manager of the Murrysville plant in March 2000.

Prior to joining Philips Respironics, Kulikowski worked for Lockheed Missiles and Space in Sunnyvale, California as a propulsion test and design engineer. He earned a bachelor's in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from the University of Dayton in 1985. He is presently a member of the Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME) and has spoken at national forums on purchasing and Operations Excellence topics.