Kruger is a privately-owned family company that’s been operating for more than 110 years in 19 manufacturing locations in North America. The company operates in various industries including packaging, tissue production, containerboard, recycling, energy, wines and spirits, biomaterials and more. Kruger Products’ tissue sector is Canada’s leading manufacturer of quality tissue products, namely Scotties®, Cashmere® and SpongeTowels®. The Crabtree Plant dedicates its expertise to decking and pulping, converting and papermaking.
In order to support daily operations and ensure excellent operational objectives, the supervisors and support groups at Kruger Products’ Crabtree Plant utilize Tervene’s platform. Discover the testimonial from Olivier Proulx, reliability technician at Kruger Products.
Initial needs: Supporting Daily Operations and Structuring Communication
We needed a tool to ensure daily communication on various levels: operation, maintenance, supervision, reliability, superintendence, top management […] a tool to support our operations (good documentation of issues, opportunities and action plan) and provide clarity on the workload and points to address.
Olivier Proulx, Reliability Technician at Kruger Products’ Crabtree Plant
The Approach: Supporting Management Processes and Connecting Teams
Deploying strong management practices
Crabtree Plant’s direction team wanted to standardize the way multidisciplinary resources collaborated within each respective work area. Using Tervene, they successfully formalized and simplified the management practices and tools used to detect issues on the floor, document problems, manage daily meetings, create action plans as well as manage opportunities and tasks. Essentially, it simplifies team changes and onboarding. According to Olivier, “utilizing the same tool allows us to swap members of two different teams to better understand the operational and equipment differences while maintaining the same daily management process.” It “enables us to help new team members by equipping them with easy-to-use tools,” he added.
Our Gemba Walks are standardized.
Olivier Proulx, Kruger Products’ Crabtree Plant
Proactively detecting and documenting frontline issues
Supervisors perform proactive Gemba walks to detect and document issues according to areas of operational excellence (Safety – Maintenance – Human Resources – Quality – etc.). After detecting and handling gaps, frontline managers can share issues in meetings or quickly assign corrective actions to the right support groups. This Gemba walk structure promotes a better supervision standard and formalizes daily interactions with operators.
Tervene helps identify gaps from the factory floor, categorize them and assign the right resources to achieve a viable solution. It helps support our processes.
Olivier Proulx, Kruger Products’ Crabtree Plant
Structured communication and problem resolution
Issues encountered in daily Gemba Walks feed meeting agendas. Supervisors and multidisciplinary resources participate in a first meeting to follow action plans and to handle new situations. Then, they share unresolved issues during a second-level meeting while involving top management. At the Crabtree plant, the communication structure helps monitor actions, escalate operational issues to top management and involve support groups to accelerate problem-solving. Olivier reiterates: “With the meetings and the structure that we have, it is easy to raise and present a discussion point to the right resources to get the help expected.”
It’s easier to track the latest actions or to follow action plans with a clearer history of problems identified and structured meetings.
Olivier Proulx, Kruger Products’ Crabtree Plant
Driving management performance
Supervisors and directors get increased visibility to monitor the management performance, recurring issues, and corrective action progress. Tervene allows the organization to analyze how operational gaps and issues identified impacts operational excellence. Finally, everyone can improve the daily control and update standards accordingly.
Management teams hold monthly meetings to “analyze management behaviours and align team resources,” says Olivier. Moreover, Olivier’s administrative role allows him to help users by answering questions, strengthening analyses and establishing a relationship between production performance and the gaps encountered.
Tervene helps justify where our teams should focus their forces on improving operations continuously.
Olivier Proulx, Kruger Products’ Crabtree Plant
Result: A Connected Daily Management Closely Aligned Towards Operational Excellence
Everyone contributes to operational control, from workers to top management. Kruger Products’ Crabtree plant digitized several daily management practices. They connected teams to align operations towards objectives.
Daily management is now digitized and connected within a collective tool.
Olivier Proulx, Kruger Products’ Crabtree Plant
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Why a Connected Management?
Digital management allows standardization, stronger adherence to processes and agility to accelerate problem-solving. Top management gains better visibility on the management performance and problems recurrence. Worldwide manufacturing leaders are going digital; find out why Tervene.
We asked Olivier Proulx; he replied: « It’s easier to add new points and remember everything, which wasn’t always the case with handwritten notes. Technology makes it easy to search for recurring problems encountered and track the workload associated with problem-solving. It provides a global view of a work unit to stay updated with teams’ check-ups without using different software. »
Project Deployment
Leveraging technology and a coaching program fosters stronger management practices. Tervene would like to congratulate the Kruger Products team at Crabtree on maintaining excellent management practices. Tervene would like to thank Olivier Proulx, Yanick Moreau and Derek Deziel for collaborating on this case study.
Testimony about Tervene’s support
“Tervene’s training and support team is always receptive to our needs and helps with solutions. They communicate the best practices to improve our usage of the tool.”
Olivier Proulx, Kruger Products’ Crabtree Plant
A word from Tervene’s project manager
“In addition to daily operations, frontline managers at Kruger Products simultaneously handle a lot of projects. They integrated Tervene into their routine to help prioritize and promote collaboration among multidisciplinary teams.”
Julien Hébert, Ing. Jr., Project Manager and Trainer at Tervene
Next Step
The Crabtree team continuously optimizes its management system to fit operational needs by leveraging the platform’s use cases. Manufacturers such as Kruger Products support several management practices: meetings and problem-solving, Gemba walks and daily checks, audits and inspections, improvement opportunities, digital operational procedures, and more.
About Kruger Products
Kruger Products is a North American leader specializing in manufacturing quality tissue products for household, industrial, and commercial use. Kruger Products employs 2,500 people within its head office located in Ontario and its eight manufacturing plants. The company is an industry pioneer in sustainability practices and well known for community involvement. Find out about career opportunities at Kruger Products.
About Tervene
Tervene supports the daily control of your operations. The connected platform helps frontline teams and direction to maintain stronger daily management, collaboration and effective problem-solving. Get a personalized demo!
Request a copy of Tervene’s Overview Brochure
