THE COMPANY
Parts assembly and machining for the aeronautics industry
Abipa International machines and assembles hard metal parts for aircraft engines, landing gear and aircraft bodies for the aeronautics industry. The plant at Boisbriand runs 24/7 and boasts 18 automated CNC machines. Using the latest technologies and managed by an experienced team, the company maintains very high standards of quality, delivery, and customer satisfaction. Abipa also holds Platinum status, the highest award in Raytheon Technologies’ supplier quality program, and Gold status from Pratt & Whitney’s United Technologies program.
INITIAL CHALLENGES
Very few standardized tools used to support daily management
Previously, “each supervisor managed their time and tasks with their own tools, such as Excel or on paper. Their jobs would be performed in an individual way, based on their experience and management skills,” explains Valentin Delannoy, former Team Leader of Continuous Improvement and Innovation at Abipa. In 2018 Abipa started the search for a solution that would help supervisors simplify and organize their daily tasks. The company wanted to implement standardized Gemba walks so that supervisors could work more consistently. Valentin adds: “We wanted to identify the opportunities and problems that we might encounter and establish action plans that could be tracked.”
SOLUTION
Digitize the daily management system and organize supervisors’ tasks
Abipa uses Tervene to support multiple management processes:
✓ Supervisor Gemba walks
✓ 5S audits and quality assurance
✓ QRQC (Quick Response Quality Control) method
✓ Communication cascade between management levels
✓ Operational meetings structure
✓ Task visibility and action-item tracking
✓ Collaboration between specialists and support groups
✓ Operator involvement in continuous improvement
Supervisors perform daily Gemba walks in the production plant. They use checklists to identify problems and opportunities. “The main goal is to ensure that our production methods, machines, inventory and processes are all compliant so we can deliver what we need to. We ensure that all tools are present, instructions are posted and that production monitoring charts are up to date,” explains Valentin. “We defined a framework and a methodology. Each supervisor performs the same Gemba walks with the same frequency.” More than 4,400 Gemba walks have been performed to date. Supervisors can take action without needing to transfer the information to a fixed laptop in the offices. That’s why over 96% of problems identified during these Gemba walks have been resolved or converted into tasks.
Audits are performed to check compliance with standards and to identify any non-compliance. Abipa has digitized standard compliance audits, machine audits and a 5S audit. During or after an audit, the auditor creates corrective action items from the automatically generated report. According to Valentin, one of the major benefits of digital is traceability. “Everything is managed in the tool, so it’s easy to work backwards with full traceability,” he adds.
“We have Gemba walks and audits that generate action items and opportunities, which are then managed by the various departments, escalated in meetings, and converted into action plans.”
Valentin, Team Leader, Continuous Improvement and Innovation
The meeting tool allows the company to standardize operational meetings for weekly monitoring, non-compliance monitoring and machine downtime monitoring. “This means that meetings are structured and contextualized, which is superb. It makes them much more efficient,” says Valentin. Communication is structured between the operators, supervisors and support departments. Information from the floor is fed back to the various management levels. As for the support departments, they can track all the action items assigned to them.
“This really helps internal communication and shortens the length of internal processes.”
Valentin Delannoy, Team Leader, Continuous Improvement and Innovation
“Tervene has accelerated the speed of interdepartmental communication.”
Stéphane Bédard, Production Department Manager
The operators are very involved in continuous improvement because they frequently communicate their ideas during the supervisors’ Gemba walks. Valentin says: “With Tervene, operators have much more agency in continuous improvement. They are the ones who experience the problems, detect the issues and come up with the ideas.” He adds that the Tervene solution “allows operators to highlight opportunities and gives all employees at all levels, even on the floor, the chance to give feedback. This is very rewarding for operators.”
When there is non-compliance with the machines, the operators trigger a QRQC (Quick Response Quality Control) process. The operator first documents the problem and can take action at their level by using a decision-making support tool. If required, the operator can then escalate the information to procedures officers and to programming. Valentin adds: “There are multiple levels. We escalate until we have applied all levels of decision-making needed so corrective action can be taken and that the problem won’t return. This helps us to easily handle quality issues.” Finally, the teams meet every day to discuss action-item progress.
“We are working on our QRQC implementation, which will shorten the time it takes to restart problem equipment and reveal opportunities for improvements.”
Stéphane Bédard, Production Department Manager
BENEFITS
✓ More than 4,400 Gemba walks have been performed to date.
✓ Over 96% of problems identified during these Gemba walks have been resolved or converted into tasks.
With the Tervene platform, supervisors’ tasks can be structured and daily management centralized in just one tool. At Abipa, operators are heavily involved in continuous improvement, support groups collaborate effectively in problem resolution, and management has better visibility of daily operations.
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“When our clients visit us, they see the performance of the structure we have implemented at Abipa.”Valentin Delannoy, Team Leader, Continuous Improvement and Innovation |
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“Tervene facilitates communication and ensures that tasks can be performed correctly and consistently.”Eric Deconninck, Director of operations
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“Tervene is now one of our key processes at Abipa: communication, production support, tracking tasks related to corrective action, and continuous improvement with QRQC.”Stéphane Bédard, Production Department Manager |
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“Tervene is essential for monitoring our daily operations and allows us to track the progress of tasks and action items better.”Rui Cabral, General Manager |
ABOUT TERVENE
The #1 Platform to Manage Daily Operations
Our daily management system empowers frontline teams and top management to reach operational excellence with stronger daily control, communication, collaboration, problem-solving, and improvement processes.
Manufacturers, operation leaders, and many SMBs digitized their management practices with our help: Gemba walks, daily checks, audits, inspections, operational meetings, digital procedures, improvement management, and much more.
