Ranpro in Simcoe provided a great forum for discussion and best practice sharing at the June Brantford and Region SIG! We started out by discussing their kanban system and how they implemented it at Ranpro. We started out by having Bob Richardson, VP Operations talked about Ranpro's history, new markets and future.  Following that we heard from Doug Howard, Logistic and Supply Chain Manager who explained how Ranpro rolled out their kanban program and also talked about the struggles they've had staying on the plan because of other business requirements. 

 Kanban in a word means signal - so a kanban program creates a signal to let you know when what product/part needs to be ordered.

One of the most interesting and most discussed slides in Doug's presentation was the following:

Who is your Customer?

Outside Venders              →                     Purchasing

Receiving                             →                      Manufacturing

Purchasing                          →                      Manufacturing

Customer Service            →                      Scheduling

Scheduling                          →                      Manufacturing

Manufacturing                  →                      Warehouse

Warehouse                        →                      CUSTOMER

Some of the questions and areas of discussion included:

1. Which areas of inventory control could you improve on?  What help could you use from the group in this regards?
2. Have you implemented kanban for any of your inventory?  What results did you get from it?  Any struggles/issues regarding it that you'd like to share with the group?

 Doug's full presentation is available at http://www.emccanada.org/membersonl/ontario/brantford/kanbanpresentationfromranprojune2010pptx

 We finished this SIG with a tour of the Ranpro plant which showed us how their kanban system looked and helped us understand a little more about how it worked.

Health and Safety

Our second SIG topic focused on creating a safety culture.  John Evans, Plant Manager at Ranpro is a regular member safety blogger for EMC and has a special passion for safety. 

Some of the ideas regarding a safety culture that John shared with the group were:

•  Safety is a culture like lean and all employees need to be involved in this with it starting at the top with management
• Ranpro incorporates health into their safety program by providing an EAP program and gym memberships for their employees
• Empower your Joint Health and Safety committee (all of Ranpro's safety committee members are certified)
• Sell the cost savings to upper management - do they understand the NEER statement and cost implications
• They conduct safety audits similar to the Ministry of Labour and they hit a few employees for it every month
• To get employees to read the safety minutes they ask a safety questions from it every month and reward for those who get the right answer

 Some other questions discussed with the group:

1. What does your current safety culture look at in your company?
2. What do you think is lacking from your current safety culture?
3. How does management support the Safety committee and culture?
4. What can you share about the safety culture/committee at your organization that others can benefit from?
5. What questions do you have for other members about their safety culture

Thanks again to Doug, John, and the rest of the team at Ranpro for great presentations, discussions and tours.  For more information on the Brantford and Region SIG, please contact Laura Gibson at 226-388-3894 or lgibson@emccanada.org.