Manac, Canada’s leading manufacturer of specialty trailers, chooses Tervene to digitize the management of its daily operations. The managers and different services use the platform to perform management practices that are based on Manac’s strategic objectives.
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The Initial Challenges of Daily Management at Manac
The previous daily management system, which was used for audits, Gemba walks, meetings, and shift handovers was an administrative burden. The system relied on the transcription of information from paper to Excel spreadsheets. Manac’s supervisors needed better visibility on corrective actions, so the managing team decided to improve the identification of issues and the communication between shifts and management levels.
We were trying to improve our proactive management. We wanted to reduce our administrative burden spent in the offices.
Martin Montminy, Coordinator at Manac
The Objectives of the Digitization with Tervene
✓ Align the daily management with Manac’s performance objectives.
✓ Support the supervisors’ daily work with a mobile solution.
✓ Structure the communication and problem-solving between management levels.
✓ Facilitate the monitoring of actions and the transfer of information between shift handovers.
« We chose an app that facilitates the capture of information on the floor, ensures its follow-ups and assigns the proper people for the job according to our priorities. It also helps us structure our meetings between the different departments and task forces, then standardizes the transfer of information within the company’s levels. »
- Dave Forgues, Production director at Manac Inc.
Manac’s Daily Management System
Alignment of the Daily Management with Strategic Objectives
All the management levels strive to improve Manac’s five pillars of performance: safety – quality – delivery – inventory – productivity. These five pillars are key components to the Gemba Walks and audits, which focus on identifying these types of issues on the factory floor. Meetings are also focused on the coordination of the five pillars of performance and the company’s strategic objectives.
« The daily management system relies on our five performance pillars: safety, quality, inventory, delivery, and productivity. We are supported by meetings, audits, Gemba walks, and coaching performed by our internal team. »
- Martin Montminy, Coordinator at Manac
Audits, Gemba Walks, and Identification of Issues
With Tervene and a tablet at their fingertips, managers can identify opportunities or problems at any moment. When they document a problem, managers take a photo and add comments before handling, sharing, or delegating it to someone. The Gemba Walk checklists and audit forms help managers identify potential issues or non-compliances. With Tervene, managers perform on average 20 audits each week and more than 350 Gemba Walks each month.
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Multi-Level Meeting Structures and Problem-Solving
To simplify the transfer of information, the meetings’ agendas are created and shared digitally. The structure of Manac’s meetings follows management levels to help streamline the escalation of issues to top management or the feedback to frontline workers. The tool allows different features: comments, owners, due dates, and history of actions. Tervene accelerates problem-solving by breaking silos between the frontline managers and other departments.
« Through my role as director, it helps me structure short and efficient daily meetings with the different sectors of production services. »
- Dave Forgues, Production director at Manac Inc.
Level 1: Gemba Walks and daily huddles with employees.
Level 2: Daily meetings with supervisors and coordinators.
Level 3: Meeting with coordinators and different support services.
Level 4: Weekly meeting with support services and directors.
Communication and Action Follow-ups
Each problem is identified, solved, added to a meeting’s agenda or shared with the right department owner. Since each problem is identified, coordinators keep traces of issues and corrective actions, which according to Rendy Samson, the Continuous Improvement Coordinator, allows for a better resolution of problems at the source. Moreover, Tervene helps Manac focus on seamless shift handovers between day, evening, and weekend teams.
Supervisors’ Management Structure
Supervisors and coordinators use Tervene every day to structure their standard management practices. They have scheduled periods to perform Gemba Walks and corrective actions. This structure helps promote operators to new supervising roles and onboard new supervisors to the team.
Coaching and Supporting the Management Practices
The coaching team has access to a dashboard to monitor the performance of management practices. They analyze issues, opportunities and reports to improve the management system. Coordinators have better visibility over management practices and leverage real-time data to coach the supervisors. As a result of good supporting practices, new frontline managers at Manac can easily adopt an effective management routine as soon as they start.
« Tervene’s app allows us to support our supervisors and onboard our new supervisors.. »
- Martin Montminy, Coordinator at Manac
Team testimonials
We decided to choose Tervene because it seemed like the most user-friendly within the suggested solutions and the easiest one to use for our managers.
Dave Forgues, Production director at Manac Inc.
Tervene allows us to ask the right questions on the floor, to directly identify the issues and make sure we transfer them in the right way.
Martin Montminy, Coordinator at Manac Inc.
It’s an all-in-one system that includes all the activities that support our daily management system: meetings, shift handover, improvement opportunities, audits, information center. For continuous improvement, we do problem-solving at its source. We are working with Lean principles, A3s, and the PDCA cycle.
Rendy Samson, Continuous improvement coordinator at Manac Inc.
Tervene is a work tool that helps us manage our strategic objectives, monitor our floor, share information to the next shift and be a structured new supervisor at Manac. Tervene helped me by giving me a structure, how to do floor tours and talking to employees.
Mario Jacques, Supervisor at Manac Inc.
The deployment of the Tervene digital tool was well received by the whole management team at Manac. They already had great management practices to reap the benefits.
Charles-Éric Gauthier, Project manager at Tervene
About Manac
Manac is Canada’s largest and most diverse trailer manufacturer and the leading North American manufacturer of specialty platforms. The company offers a wide range of vans, dumps and belt trailers, lowbeds, grain hoppers, chip and logging trailers, and heavy-duty chassis. Manac has five manufacturing plants in North America and more than 1000 employees in Canada. Find out more about their career opportunities.
Photo Credit: Manac Inc.
About Tervene
Our connected manager platform 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. Request a copy of our Solution Overview (PDF)
