CDI Holdings · Case Study
MDW® & GKN Lean Enterprise · Carpenedolo, Italy — Presented by Corrado Lorenzoni
GKN FAD Wheels Italy
Aligning MDW with a Global Lean Enterprise — OEE from 44.2% to 64.2% in 12 Months
GKN Off-Highway Division · Carpenedolo, Brescia · Wheels for Agriculture, Construction & Forklifts · 15 Mini-Businesses · OEE +45%
Background
Integrating MDW with GKN’s Global Lean Enterprise
GKN is a global engineering group with over 35,000 employees across 30-plus countries. At its FAD Wheels facility in Carpenedolo, near Brescia, GKN manufactures wheels for agricultural, construction, and forklift applications. With an existing GKN Lean Enterprise programme at corporate level, the challenge at Carpenedolo was integrating MDW® with GKN’s structured Lean system to create a unified model that produced both the cultural engagement and the technical discipline that neither approach could sustain alone. Corrado Lorenzoni guided the transformation with direct prior MDW implementation experience — giving the programme a practitioner-led depth that consultancy-only engagements rarely achieve.
The Challenge
Cultural Silos, Passive Teams, “Someone Else’s Responsibility”
Despite early MDW efforts, safety, quality, and maintenance were seen as someone else’s responsibility. Indirect workers and support functions resisted involvement. Daily meetings lacked focus and team members did not fully understand their roles. The initial MDW foundation had to be expanded and embedded more deeply — moving from early adoption to genuine cultural ownership across the full plant, including functions that typically remain outside improvement programmes.
Processes make it possible. People make it happen.
Three-Role MB Accountability
Team Leader
Owns daily performance, runs shift meetings, maintains visual boards — the primary accountability anchor at team level
Coach
Develops Team Leader capability, challenges performance, sustains MDW discipline — the layer that prevents regression
Sponsor
Senior-level accountability for each MB — management visibility made structural, not left to chance
+45%
OEE improvement
44.2% to 64.2%
44.2% to 64.2%
15
Mini-Businesses
shopfloor & support
shopfloor & support
+52%
Improvement ideas
167 → 254
167 → 254
−25%
Absenteeism
6.0% → 4.5%
6.0% → 4.5%
The Approach
15 Mini-Businesses, Three Roles Per Team, and MDW Integrated with Lean Enterprise
1
15 Mini-Businesses Across Shopfloor and Support
Fifteen Mini-Businesses established across all production areas and, critically, support departments — the functions that had previously resisted involvement. Each MB was given a Team Leader, a Coach, and a Sponsor, creating a three-level accountability structure that made performance ownership explicit at every tier. The inclusion of support functions directly addressed the “someone else’s responsibility” culture: when QA, maintenance, and planning each own an MB, no function can position itself as external to improvement.
2
Daily Shift Meetings and Visual QSCP Management
Daily MB shift meetings with a structured QSCP (Quality, Safety, Cost, People) visual management system gave every team a consistent performance language and a daily accountability rhythm. Cross-functional reviews connected team-level performance to site strategy. Monthly multi-level reviews provided visibility and recognition across the full plant. Management visibility at MB boards was increased deliberately as a coaching investment, not a compliance activity.
3
Formal Training Across All Three Roles
Team Leaders, Coaches, and Sponsors all received formal training specific to their MB role — the element most organisations skip. At GKN FAD, every layer of the accountability structure was developed explicitly: Team Leaders knew how to run a shift meeting; Coaches knew how to challenge and develop; Sponsors knew what their visible presence needed to accomplish at the MB level. Training all three makes the structure real.
4
Integrating MDW with GKN Lean Enterprise
The GKN Lean Enterprise steering process was integrated with MDW’s cultural engagement structure — Lean providing the technical improvement methodology and MDW providing the team ownership culture that makes Lean disciplines sustainable. Corrado Lorenzoni’s prior MDW experience was central: the programme was practitioner-led rather than consultant-managed, with knowledge of both systems residing in the person responsible for the transformation.
5
Processes Make It Possible. People Make It Happen.
The OEE improvement at GKN FAD — from 44.2% to 64.2%, a 20-point gain in 12 months — is the quantitative expression of a cultural shift describable in one sentence: safety, quality, and maintenance stopped being someone else’s responsibility. When support functions moved from resistance to active participation; when daily meetings became focused through the three-role structure; when management became visible through Sponsor and Coach roles — the OEE followed. It always follows. The 25% reduction in absenteeism is the human expression: people whose work has meaning and whose team depends on them show up differently. The 52% increase in improvement ideas — from 167 to 254 — is the innovation expression: teams with structure, language, and permission to improve do more than teams without. The integration of MDW and Lean at GKN FAD produced what neither system produces alone: a plant where Lean’s technical disciplines are sustained by MDW’s ownership culture, and where the ownership culture is directed by Lean’s improvement focus. Processes make it possible. People make it happen. That integration — built in Carpenedolo by Corrado Lorenzoni and the GKN FAD teams — is the CDI library’s final case and its most precise conclusion.
Results (2005–2006)
OEE +45%, Absenteeism −25%, Ideas +52% — MDW and Lean as One System
+45%
OEE Improvement
OEE from 44.2% to 64.2% in 12 months — a 20-point gain produced by cultural ownership of the performance components that determine output.
−25%
Absenteeism
Absenteeism from 6.0% to 4.5% — the human expression of teams whose work has meaning and whose colleagues depend on their presence.
+52%
Ideas Generated
Improvement ideas from 167 to 254 — teams given structure, language, and permission to improve generating more than teams without.
15
Mini-Businesses
Fifteen MBs across shopfloor and support departments — the structural answer to “someone else’s responsibility”: when every function owns an MB, none is external.
3
Roles Per MB
Team Leader, Coach, and Sponsor in every MB — three-level accountability making performance ownership explicit at every tier of the organisation.
Unified
MDW + Lean
MDW cultural engagement integrated with GKN Lean Enterprise — the model that makes technical disciplines sustainable and ownership purposeful.
“Processes make it possible. People make it happen.”
GKN FAD Wheels · Carpenedolo, Italy · MDW & Lean Enterprise Integration Programme
Key Insight
GKN FAD Wheels is the CDI library’s 50th case and its Italian proof point. MDW and Lean are complementary architectures — Lean makes excellence possible, MDW makes people sustain it. Integrated through 15 MBs, three-role accountability, and daily QSCP management: OEE gains 20 points, absence falls, ideas multiply. The library ends where every transformation begins — with people who have decided to care about the work they do.
