The proactive operations management combined with firm quality control and work safety management make Beauce Atlas a grade-A partner when it comes to heavy steel structure projects. Read further to get a better understanding of the manufacturer’s day-to-day and discover the team’s management practices that continually support each project leading up to installation.
Initial Challenges
With the continuous growth in demand for their products, Beauce Atlas thought it would be an opportunity to equip their teams with better tools for improved management, support and control over their daily operations. With the countless challenges associated with the design, production and installation of steel frames and structures, Beauce Atlas’s teams must be autonomous and agile in their day-to-day activities to ensure seamless operations management.
Objectives
Committed to being the best possible partner in the industry, Beauce Atlas makes sure that every team member is in complete control from the drawing board to the construction site. With high-quality standards criteria for their projects, the organization opted to digitalize their management tools to standardize the control of their daily operations.
To do so, the main focus of the project was towards the following aspects:
- The corrective actions and issues tracking and follow-ups
- The establishment of standard management methods and practices for supervisors
- The alignment of continuous improvement with experienced issues and problematics
- The proactivity and anticipation of possible issues and unplanned events
Equipping the Field Management Teams for Better Control of Daily Operations
Tervene helps us keep real-time control over our daily operations.
Yanick Toussaint, Continuous Improvement Counsellor at Beauce Atlas
Problem Resolution and Task Tracking
Before, Beauce Atlas’s teams used more traditional methods and tools to keep track of every task and corrective measures in place. As a result, team members faced some challenges when they wanted to efficiently transfer the information to other teams and follow the task progression with the forepersons, support services and management.
With Tervene’s platform, tools used for collaboration and task tracking are now standardized with the forepersons, which simplifies the daily operations management:
- Real-time visibility and progress-tracking on ongoing tasks
- Communication and collaboration stream between team members and support services
- Raised non-compliances, gaps and problem resolution analysis
- Information traceability and centralization
- Efficient operational meetings from adequate information transfer across different management levels
Shift Handovers
With the growth in demand for their steel structure products, the organization decided to add a weekend shift in addition to their already existing day and night shifts. In total, Beauce Atlas is now managing many continuous work shifts in a single day. The transfer of key information between those shifts is vital to ensure a seamless continuation of the operations after a shift handover.
By using Tervene’s platform and common standard tools, the organization set up a solid structure that allows employees to transfer and relay efficiently important information to the members in charge of the next work shift, such as:
- Raised questions and input from last shift
- Raised gaps and non-compliances waiting for corrective measures
- Visibility on tasks progression
- Planning changes/modifications
Shift handovers and daily information transfer meetings changed our employees’ vision on information transfer and tracking.
Yanick Toussaint, Continuous Improvement Counsellor at Beauce Atlas
Gemba Walks
The production of steel frames and structures involves long and complex projects that are susceptible to many modifications along the way. Therefore, proactively managing these changes and alterations throughout a project was crucial for Beauce Atlas’s teams. The addition of gemba walks within the team allowed the organization to further support its proactivity and control over its operations.
Gemba walks are now executed by overseers and forepersons several times a day with standard validation lists. Doing so allows team members to proactively validate the remaining hours left to their work shift while anticipating and ensuring that no unexpected issues will affect their productivity.
Here are some of the elements included in the proactive validation lists during a gemba walk:
- Quality control
- Planning and production monitoring
- Supplies and material preparation
- Maintenance
- Health and safety
- Performance indicators
Next Focus With Tervene
Construction site gemba walks
Soon, Beauce Atlas wishes to connect its construction site teams with Tervene to improve on-site gaps, non-compliances and information escalation. This will allow the management team, project managers, and engineers to give faster feedback and accelerate their decision-making. In addition, it will be possible for superintendents and construction site inspectors to document the issues happening on-site with standard forms and immediately escalate this information to the appropriate resources. Ultimately, this initiative will accelerate the overall problem identification and problem-solving process while also facilitating the communication between the engineering teams, project managers, on-field construction site workers and the production teams.
Procedures documentation with the knowledge center
In order to provide members with the necessary tools and information to accomplish their tasks, some of Beauce Atlas’s procedures and tutorials will be gradually digitized through Tervene’s knowledge center. Also, the platform will allow employees to have fast and easy access to procedures in text form, image or video.
About Beauce Atlas
Beauce Atlas is a steel structure manufacturer that offers its complete expertise in designing, manufacturing, and installing heavy steel constructions and building structures. The organization counts close to 280 employees shared across 2 manufacturing plants in Sainte-Marthe, 3 design offices in Québec, Sainte-Thérèse, Sainte-Marie, and others on construction sites. Beauce Atlas is the partner of choice for all of your projects.
About Tervene
Tervene is the n°1 platform for the control of your daily operations. The platform structures the front-line manager’s work and equips the management and operations teams for better collaboration and efficient problem-solving for improved day-to-day management.
