Between July 2016 and today, the first manufacturer to ever use Tervene, JIT Laser, performed over 1500 Gemba Walks and proactively identified more than 2400 production issues. See what René Marcoux, VP, has to say about Tervene.
JIT Laser
JIT Laser is a 84 employees shop of 60k sq ft based in Saint-Louis-de-Blandford, in the province of Québec, Canada. Starting off only with laser cutters, JIT Laser later aquired pressbrakes and recently also aquired a CNC rolling machine. Since it’s foundation in 2007, the company’s strong growth has pushed them to move twice over the course of the past 10 years.
Initial situation
Team leaders at JIT Laser were familiar with gemba walks and continuous improvement even before Tervene, but the team faced challenges with the tool they were using before. According to René Marcoux, VP at JIT Laser, the main challenges they faced were to find and manage improvement opportunities for their organization.
Gemba Walks before Tervene
Before Tervene, Gemba Walks were carried out on Onenote. The process was heavy and inefficient, compiling results was a pain in the ass and it was difficult to identify improvement opportunities from the issues that were found during the Gemba Walks.
Solution
Onenote was efficient to conduct Gemba Walks and proactively prevent potential issues from happening, but limitations such as the need for constant internet connection and the inability to filter opportunities prompted JIT Laser to switch for Tervene, a continuous improvement software.
Gemba Walks with Tervene
The fast growth JIT Laser was experiencing led to rapid and sometimes imperfect changes. The ability to quickly and efficiently improve new processes with Tervene helped JIT Laser manage their growth with success.
Results
Since they began using Tervene in 2016, JIT Laser carried out more than 1.5k Gemba Walks and identified more than 2.4k potential issues proactively
Using Tervene as their continuous improvement software resulted in:
- More efficient communication of production issues;
- Better ability to face growth challenges;
- More efficient action plans and tasks follow ups;
- Better visibility over company’s challenges and issues.
Testimonials
What challenges did you wish to address with Tervene?
“The main challenge was to find improvement opportunities and being able to manage them. We wanted a solution that would be “user-friendly”. We can now compile, group, sort and filter our improvement opportunities. It’s much easier than what we had before.”
- René Marcoux, VP, Jit Laser
What difference did you notice between Onenote and Tervene?
“We had a tool on Onenote before Tervene, but it was much less user-friendly. When we wanted to find the right improvement idea to take action on, it was so much harder to target the right one. Is it the right one? What impact will it have on our employees, our other processes, our customers? Which one is a recurring issue? Which one will be the most profitable? We couldn’t target those things before Tervene. Furthermore, the app works on the Ipad even with no internet connection, that’s a big plus from what we use to have.”
- René Marcoux, VP, JIT Laser
What feature do you prefer as VP of JIT Laser?
“The dashboards: It’s a distinct advantage over Onenote, we didn’t have all the information and charts that we have with Tervene now. It’s an important bank of information in regards to the statistics of the gemba walks, the issues found and the meetings. It’s presented in a way that’s easy to understand. We can finally keep track of the gemba walks that weren’t carried out and the issues that came out of the ones that were carried out.”
- René Marcoux, VP, JIT Laser
How did team leaders react to Tervene?
“We were already performing Gemba Walks, so we only had get them to use Tervene to carry them out. If I had to compare how they reacted to Tervene vs Onenote, I’d say they adopted Tervene with much more ease. There was no change resistance, everyone started using it as if they’d been using it for years.”
- René Marcoux, VP, JIT Laser
Would you recommand Tervene?
“Yes! It helped us in becoming more efficient, and it still does. Using anything else than Tervene would be a step backward for us.”
- René Marcoux, VP, JIT Laser
