Our thanks to Bonduelle for hosting this month's fabulous event! Bonduelle, a local leading processor of canned and forzen vegetables, has continued to meet the challenges of manufacturing in today's economic climate.  That said, they were perplexed by the challenges of how to engage a workforce and standardize the activities of their supervisory staff while managing the complexities of a noisy environment, cultivating their culture in a workforce that can expand by 500% during peak production periods and continue to make forward movement in an environment that seem pilfered by "fire fighting".

As part of their lean journey, the team at Bonduelle decided to focus on a lean project that would meet the challenges of their environment while coaching supervisors on the elements of "fire prention" in place of "fire fighting".  This new system based first on the collaboration with area supervisors that develops a check list of key areas that need to be checked on during the production shift in order to define elements that could lead to larger problems if not given attention.  Another key element, is the opportunity for the supervisor to also interact with employees of the production cell, ensuring clear lines of communication.  As part of the success of this project, audit boards have been installed to record key targets and actual results, allowing opportunity for communication to all employees in the area visually, in such a challenged noisy environment.

Part of the key success of this program is driven by an audit system of the process.  Auditors, who have volunteered for the responsibility, over an above their regular responsibilities, facilitate the process of developing the area checklist as well as coaching the supervisor during times of high challenge.  This consistency and audit focus, carrys over into other areas of the operation.  Even meetings can be subject to an "audit".

As a key follow-up measure, supervisors and managers alike have taken to using "action plans" that are used to capture tasks that need to be looked after.   Anyone and everyone seems to operate using this key idea and there has been a significant reduction in the tasks and items that fall through the cracks, with real activity and movement in follow-though and getting things done.

All the participants were given the chance to tour the facility and see just what happens at Bonduelle.  All were amazed at the complexity of how raw vegetables make a transformation to what we see on our tables for a meal.  This was a very engaging session and the Windsor Consortium Members should look forward to more acitivites that focus on operational bench-marks and sharing opportunities for the future!

Our "Thanks" again to the team at Bonduelle for sharing with us and inspiring some of the members to initiate a process within their own organizations.