The New - 20/20 Magazine

host’s perspective these visits are an
opportunity to get lean disciples to
come through and identify waste that we
may not see because we live here every
day,” explained martin.
standardaero, performs maintenance,
repair and overhaul of aircraft engines
and airframes for a variety of clients
including commercial air carriers and
military clients. its winnipeg facility has
about 1,300 employees and deals with
nine different types of aircraft engines,
each with thousands of parts that need
to be tracked.
standardaero’s adoption of lean
manufacturing principles and taking
a cellular approach to its operations
has meant huge rewards in efficiency.
the firm’s most recent redesign of its
facility in 2006 resulted in a 60 per cent
reduction in cost of poor quality, a 20 per
cent labour cost reduction and a 40 per
cent reduction in inventory, said martin.
However the process of improving
the efficiency is never over, and
businesspeople should never feel they
have mastered the art of continuous
improvement, he said.
“if you do get to that point of
thinking that way, i think you are in
trouble,” he said.
For westeel, a manufacturer of
grain bins using lean manufacturing
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principles to identify bottlenecks
in their production meant massive
improvements in efficiency.
one bottleneck was in a mill that
made two different types of wall sheet
for grain bins. the equipment in question
could only put out between three and
four coils of wall sheet per shift, said
Don ozero, operations manager at
westeel. the problem was it took eight
hours to change dies. by investing in a
single-minute exchange of die system
westeel was able to shrink the change
over time to five-10 minutes.
labour costs were halved, production
more than doubled and westeel was
able to reduce its inventory as it could
more quickly respond to customer
orders, said ozero.
like martin, ozero said lean is a
journey, not a destination.
learning how to apply lean principles
to winpak’s operations took a few years,
noted David bornn, winpak’s manager
of operational excellence.
winpak produces plastic packaging
materials, primarily for the food industry.
it employs 600 people in winnipeg in a
facility of less than 500,000 square feet.
“we’re not an assembly type operation
we’re continuous process so trying to
figure out how it leant itself to our type
of operation took a little while. over
the last three to four years we’ve come
to understand more of what it means
and now we are using it as a problem
solving technique and driving out waste
cme Best PractIces
and improving value for our customers,”
bornn said.
“implementing huddle systems
and soliciting employee suggestions
has engaged employees in problem
solving,” bornn added. “suggestions
have skyrocketed and the company
discovered that an older system of
“You can read books, but it’s only when they really
see it that the penny drops and they say, ‘Oh OK now
I see what it means.”
prizes for the ‘best’ suggestions actually
impeded improvements.”
under the old prize system
employees would hold back ideas if they
thought a co-worker had a better idea
that would beat them to the prize.
“we’d rather see a thousand little
ideas implemented than one or two big
ones,” said bornn.
“it’s really about education,” said
ian marshall, cme manitoba’s lean
champion. “visits like this give people
an opportunity to see what other people
are doing. they are all in different types
of manufacturing, but the common
ingredient is that they have to deliver
a product to a customer and they
have employees.”
the events typically include a series of
visits at different host firms interspersed
with presentations, hands-on plant visit,
feedback and networking.
“you can read books, but it’s only
when they really see it that the penny
drops and they say, ‘oh oK now i see
what it means,’ and then they have
the confidence to go back and drive
the change in their own organization,”
said marshall.
innovation insights is designed to help sme’s achieve business excellence. results are achieved
utilizing the program’s proven format of interactive learning that includes a behind-the-scenes visit.
visit innovation insights’ host companies who are at the forefront of best practice implementation.
CANADIAN MANUfACTUrErS & ExPOrTErS’ MAgAzINE | 45