When the economy tanked in 2008-2009, PV Manufacturing of Leduc wasn’t far behind.
“It went in the toilet, to be pretty blunt,” says Kevin Dreany, the general manager of PV Manufacturing. The builder of downhole drilling tools lost around 75 percent of its business.
“With everyone becoming more and more competitive we had to find ways to keep up and that meant shorter delivery times, cheaper pricing and higher quality.”
Dreany learned about Productivity Alberta through a talk hosted by the Leduc – Nisku Economic Development Authority. He contacted Productivity Alberta and filled out a questionnaire. Around 20 questions long, it was, “just some raw data to start with. That was the initial foray into the whole thing and that was pretty quick.”
After the initial questionnaire, the company arranged for a site visit by one of the Productivity Improvement Services specialists from Productivity Alberta. According to Dreany it’s not a big investment of time for this visit. Productivity Alberta says to budget three to four hours for the visit but the visit to PV Manufacturing was over in only an hour and a half.
After the visit, Dreany received a report where they assessed the work site in 14 different ways.
“Our next step was I trained all of my people. Everyone in the plant got Lean 101 training from Productivity Alberta,” says Dreany.
“We put together some lean teams and identified some projects and picked some low hanging fruit and did some more training after that. It gives everyone in the plant an understanding of what’s going on. It’s starting from the guys on the floor and working upwards rather than me trying to drive everything myself. Getting everyone involved is absolutely critical.”
Initial contact was on July 22, 2009. The visit was on August 5 and the Lean 101 education program happened on August 19.
Dreany acknowledges the importance of bringing Productivity Alberta into his business.
“We had to do this because the manufacturing sector in this area is so competitive, there are a lot of small shops that can build parts very cheap and a lot of companies are looking at overseas markets where they can get it cheaper but not necessarily faster. So that was our opportunity to say ‘Ok we might not be able to build them as cheap as somebody in China, but we can definitely get it to them quicker.’”
7 Things to Know Before Your Productivity Improvement Services Site Visit
- Pick a date when most of the management team is available for 15-30 minutes
- Complete the Initial Information Sheet and send it to Productivity Alberta at least a week before the assessment.
- It usually takes between 3-4 hours for the site visit. The first 15-30 minutes are for a presentation to the Management Team, followed by a walk-through of the operation with the person in-charge of production/operations.
- Productivity Alberta is flexible. The appointment can be set up any time during the business day.
- The assessor would prefer to see any previously existing memos or directives relating to productivity.
- Expectations should be tempered at the outset. While Productivity Alberta might make specific recommendations, the bulk of the recommendations will relate to general principles and education.
- Productivity Alberta give you options for how to continue progressing with process improvement. You’ll be able to choose to work with a different consultant, continue the work on your own, or hire Process Improvement Services to provide additional services or training.
For more information on Productivity Alberta’s Productivity Improvement Services, or to book an assessment or seminar at your company, please Contact Us.
