To solve labor challenges and improve efficiency in building remote, large-scale solar-power projects across the U.S., McCarthy Building Cos. is borrowing principles of an approach developed by the U.S. government during World War II to accelerate industrial production, despite limits on staffing.
The Training Within Industries (TWI) approach, which also became the core of the “kaizen” business culture in Japan, now is being updated by McCarthy as a training vehicle for its growing array of U.S. solar-power jobs. “When we grew into doing 12 [solar projects] across eight states, we realized pretty quickly that we could not rely on the sort of tribal knowledge we had,” says Scott Canada, senior vice president of renewable energy.