"If we are to achieve results never before accomplished, we must expect to employ methods never before attempted." ~SIR FRANCIS BACON 1561-1626~

Workforce Literacy Return on Investment

Read Right Yields a High Return on Your Investment

What’s expensive is not implementing Read Right. We’re a $200 million a year operation. We can’t afford to be wrong even 5% of the time.Don Johnson
Plant Manager, Simpson Investment Company
Tacoma Paper Mill, Tacoma, WA

One company’s experience:

Deknatel manufactures a broad array of medical devices. They initiated a Continuous Improvement Institute (CII) in which employees received 50 hours of training in company products, team problem solving, and quality tools, such as Pareto analysis, brainstorming, fishbone diagrams, etc. After the first of many planned trainings, corporate leaders were disappointed with the results and determined that poor reading skills prevented full participation and effective implementation. Deknatel brought in Read Right to improve employee literacy, and then continued the CII trainings.

Revenue per employee increased from $131,000 to $177,000 in the three years after Read Right and CII were initiated.

Suggestions from employees participating in the Continuous Improvement Institute and the Read Right program saved $760,000 in one year and another $1.3 million from new suggestions during the second year. That’s $2 million in savings total. Those are real numbers. They’re documented; they’re audited. For every $1 we spent on Read Right, we got $5 back.

We couldn’t have done it without the Read Right program. Improvement never stops after people have the ski

Robert Pelletier
Vice President, Manufacturing, Deknatel

Improvements that occur in production, quality, safety, team participation, and communications mean money to the bottom line.

Production

Employees participating in Read Right have reported re-work is decreasing and productivity is increasing due to their improved reading skills.R.A. West, Manager Human Resources
Fabrications Division, Boeing
Seattle, WA

Quality

At the time we started the program, I was managing one of the assembly operations. We were in serious trouble on our quality. Now that our employees can read well, they aren’t intimidated from going to the written procedures when they have a question. Read Right had a big play in turning that operation around.Robert Pelletier, Vice President for Operations
Deknatel, Falls River, MA

Safety

Something happened to the people that went to the Read Right reading program that motivated them. They paid attention to detail because they could read better. Our safety record was the most improved in all of the Weyerhaeuser Canada operations the year we brought in Read Right.Bob Edwards, Manager
Weyerhaeuser Saw Mill, Kamloops, BC, Canada
The amazing thing is the Korbel team has cut safety costs 93% since moving to a Behavior Based Safety Process. The lost time incident rate at our Korbel Sawmill has been 0.00 for four consecutive years. If I were to set up a Behavior Based Safety Process in a new plant, I would go through the same sequence again. I would solve the reading and English communication problems first, using Read Right because of the fast results. Then I would move into the safety process work and the training required to implement it. People have to have the skills first.Randy Robertson, Employee Development Administrator
Simpson Korbel Sawmill, Korbel, CA

Team Participation

You need to be a low-cost manufacturer. That means you need cells and TPM and team involvement. Teams are critical to being competitive, and RR is vital to getting people to participate on teams.Tim Thomas
Vice President for Quality Assurance & Regulatory Affairs, Deknatel
Falls River, MA

Communications

It was an absolute pleasure to hear one of the Read Right pupils present a written briefing to the Agri-products Supply Chain Project team and his peer group this week. His written report, presentation style, ability to read the report without difficulty, and the ability of his audience to follow, assimilate, and understand his points and position taken has improved 1,000 fold. The credit for this has to go to the Read Right program.Doug Clark, Manager, Saskatchewan Wheat Pool
Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada

I started as a ‘red’ level (first grade) reader and it would take me an hour and half to read three or four pages in one book. I plan to go back to school and get my diploma. This is one of the best things that has ever happened to me, and I’m so thankful.

— John, International Paper, Riegelwood, NC —