Caesars Casinos

Caesars Casinos

JWI505

August 06, 2015

Caesars Casinos

Describe two challenges that Caesars experienced during the Lean implementation process. What actions were taken to overcome each challenge? Were they effective?

            As of 2014, Caesars Entertainment which is based in Las Vegas is one of the biggest and profitable casino groups in the world. Caesars Entertainment has its business operations run through fifty casinos across the world with sixty eight thousand employees. Caesar Entertainment had one of its largest operations in Tunica, Mississippi. In the year 2008, senior leadership planned to undertake lean implementation for the first time at its Tunica, Mississippi operation to address following issues that had the potential to impact its business performance (i) Economic crisis after the financial crisis leading to steep reduction in consumer demands, economic activity, business profitability etc. (ii) Lack of a process based formal management and operational process or procedure which was impacting the business. For example, the operational or business objective was driven by the particular manager’s priorities rather than consolidated and strategic business goals of the organization (Hyer et al, 2014).

            However the company undertook the lean implementation successfully and made a significant transformation of its business operations. During the lean implementation process at the Tunica, Mississippi the company faced following two major challenges: (i) When the company initiated the lean implementation process, it created two different insecurities in the minds of the employees. One of the insecurity was that people started fearing that they may lose their job. One another insecurity was that people undertaking the kaizen initiative of waste reduction through the DOWNTIME initiative for their respective process, started fearing that their supervisors or managers doubt their technical capability. (ii) Further various kaizen recommendations required additional funding requirements to undertake certain operations. In certain instances these additional funding needs exceeded process budget and hence difficult obtaining approvals (Hyer et al, 2014).  

           The company was able to effectively and successfully manage these challenges and implement the lean process. The company was able to effectively overcome these challenges in the following ways (i) The insecurity and fears of the employees was addressed by way of consistent and effective communication methods, education / training and by way of communication to make them realize the goals of the lean process / kaizen like enhancement of wok environment, better problem solving skills etc. (ii) The reluctance of approving authorities for extra budget / funds for implementation gradually reduced as they observed the benefits of the kaizen implementations (Hyer et al, 2014). The measures were successful as they were positive, result oriented and transparent.