authored by Dave Rizzardo, Associate Director, MWCC 

Our September 2026 MWCC Lean Facility tour took place at the Manitowoc location in Shady Grove, Pennsylvania. The impressive tour covered multiple facilities throughout their industrial campus. Before heading to the facilities, the Lean learning morning began with an overview of the company, their Lean strategy, and a few of their improvement efforts.

Manitowoc’s headquarters is in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and its history dates back to 1902. They design, manufacture, market, and support a broad portfolio of crane products and related services for customers across construction, infrastructure, energy, industrial, and specialty lifting applications. The Shady Grove, Pennsylvania campus is Manitowoc’s largest crane manufacturing facility.

During this initial company overview, their commitment to a Lean operating philosophy, or what they call “The Manitowoc Way” was evident in their change or experimental efforts, not only at the granular, gemba layer, but at the organization structural level as well. A successful Lean transformation must have a committed leadership team, and it didn’t take long to see how this is definitely the case at Manitowoc.

Multiple improvement efforts were reviewed, but I’d like to highlight one of their plant floor efforts since most, if not all manufacturers can relate. They have an ongoing effort on “hammer elimination.” Of course, hammers have their “appropriate” use, but don’t kid yourself, they are not precision adjustment tools, and often, their use is a symptom of a problem that needs to be addressed. I am not suggesting that you throw away your hammers, but I am suggesting that you look at everything with fine-tuned Lean goggles on like Manitowoc does…even regarding your cherished adjustment tools!

After the initial overview, we began our multi-facility tour of the Manitowoc operations. The planning and organization of the tour, which involved a couple vans, multiple facilities, and participation of personnel from each facility, was a Lean lesson in itself. This obviously  required significant coordination and collaboration. Now, don’t you think that this is also one of the reasons for their success in building their five main product lines, involving hundreds of components, and both internal and external suppliers? I think so! Lean excellence requires system cooperation and collaboration.

As soon as we walked into the first facility, carrydeck assembly, signs of their improvement efforts and employee engagement were immediately noticed. Their communication board displayed various metrics and action items in a way that made it obvious that this is an action board, not a nice show piece (industrial wallpaper) which unfortunately is seen in some organizations. The handwritten action item form with responsibility, dates, and status, was just one of the clear indicators of experimentation and continuous improvement.

Throughout the tour, their workplace organization efforts were easily observed, but maybe less evident was the beforementioned coordination required to build their highly customized crane products. There’s coordination required through line balancing within each facility, along with the cross-facility and external supplier logistics.

Also, something that I should have highlighter from the very start… a safety culture was paramount. Anything less is the most severe violation of the Respect for People principle imaginable, so you must have that in place as the #1 priority, otherwise, your Lean transformation will fail.

Following the tour, we debriefed during lunch. The discussion could have lasted all afternoon. This was due to two reasons. First, the attendees had so many takeaways that they wanted to discuss various things with the Manitowoc team. The second reason was the fact that Manitowoc not only addressed the attendee questions but were also interested in feedback from the group to further improve based on the observations of some fresh eyes…another indicator of true Lean culture of continuous improvement, or the Manitowoc Way!