Senior Manager was our first event of the day and the team at KEI provided some background on the company, including the fact that it has been family-owned and operated since 1948 and currently has 400 non-unionized employees. Kuntz prides itself on being 'quality obsessed' and provides premium plated products to a variety of industries.  They believe the key to their success is in their hard working employees who take pride in their work. 

Continuous improvement (CI) was the second focus of…

Our day started with our Sr. Manager's group where we discussed the challenges of growth within an organization.  One of the keys to their growth was setting the foundations for success including investing over $10 million in equipment over the last 10 years. 

ODG - Gear division is a high mix, low volume producer (with lot sizes between 1 and 50000 pieces). These parts service their sister facility - Argo as well as many customers in the agricultural, off-highway, aerospace and industrial…

They specialize in fine blanking part primarily for the automotive industry (64% automotive; 95% of the Canadian facility is automotive) and they provide a unique advantage because they produce 100% of their tooling in house (in the Cambridge facility).

Senior Manager's: During the Sr. Manager's event we discuss the challenges of globalization as Precision Resources opened a facility in China in 2010.  We discussed
the cultural differences and supply chain challenges of opening in a new area. …

Two great groups and two great discussions started off 2012!

At our first SIG, Jen McGillis from Ergo Inc spoke on behalf of EMC's 360° EHS Initiative. She discussed the challenges of an aging workforce and Ergonomics.  Jen presented topical information and gave us lots of time to ask questions and discuss challenges currently facing manufacturers.

Some things we discussed included:

• Getting employees to report when they have discomfort, rather than when they require medical attention-the…

Answer: They were all products from companies that hosted KW/Cambridge events in 2011

KW/Cambridge had a great and diverse group of hosts for their SIGs in 2011.  We started the year off at Tigercat in Cambridge which makes huge and very cool forestry equipment and finished with a tour of RIM in Waterloo (who make the blackberries in case you didn't know).  While they may seem like very different products it is interesting to note that they are both high mix/low volume producers.  They are…

We started with RIM talking to us about their company history-for a company that created the Blackberry you would think most of us would be familiar with their history but they provided interested facts about their history that I wasn't aware of.  They talked about how in their peak they shipped 24 hours a day 7 days a week and were producing at 6 products a second.  They sell their products through a dealer network.  In the early years a product life cycle would be 3 years where as now most…

Over 50 people across 3 events had the privilege of touring and sharing best practices at Spartech Color in Stratford.  They are working on their Continuous Improvement (CI) journey and used the CI group to help them create their CI strategic plan?  During this event we looked at considerations including support from various areas of the organization; scepticism; 'seen it before' or flavor of the month mentality and resource constraints (time and money). The Plant Manager, Dale McCormick talked…

Over 60 individuals across 4 events enjoyed the tours, networking and best practice sharing at Centra Industries.  Centra provided great tours for all the groups and was very open in their successes, future goals and challenges.

Senior Managers:

We had guests from Waterloo North Hydro; Cambridge Hydro and Kitchener Hydro talk to us about incentives and programs for manufacturers - for more information on these programs visit www.saveonenergy.ca

Following this presentation we heard about…

Taylor & Grant in Waterloo was recently bought out by Nassau Inn in New York State.  As a result they are closing their manufacturing facility in Waterloo, ON.  There are many great workers there and I thought this forum would be a good opportunity to mention the skill set and knowledge of these workers in hopes that you might have a job opportunity for them.

 According to their website and in my experience with many Taylor and Grant employees they live by the mission of  creates lasting,…