Bradflo – Leveraging Government funding to accelerate improvement

Bradflo is a leading manufacturer and distributor of air handling, air distribution and ventilation products, components and accessories. Bradflo is a privately owned Australian company and their Australian manufacturing site is located in Albury on the NSW/Victorian boarder.

Like many other Australian manufacturers Bradflo are feeling the pressure of competition from low input cost offshore competitors the manufacturing operations. They have made the necessary changes to their business model and are making use of the competitive advantage of being located in their market and are focusing their efforts on reducing their lead time for delivery of their custom made products.. Bradflo Albury now specialize in supplying their distribution network with custom made grills, diffusers, duct, and sheet metal products.

Bradflo have remained viable in a competitive market by specializing in custom made and short run items and senior leadership making a committment to a path of continuous improvement and lean manufacturing. Wayne Good the Production Engineer/ Lean Manufacturing Manager has begun the process by introducing lean manufacturing to the site.  To add extra resources to their development Bradflo have enlisted the support of LEAN Rt and their lead facilitator Geoff Green to deliver Certificate training in Competitive Manufacturing to the bulk of their operations staff and frontline leaders - 68 people. 

The imperatives that Bradflo faces are to continue to cut costs by reducing waste and rework and to reduce their delivery time to ensure they retain an edge over their competition.

I asked Wayne a couple of questions about their decision to undertake the CMI program.

Why did Bradflo decide to undertake the CMI program?

Over the past few years Bradflo has experienced significant business growth. Often with such speedy growth comes the need to change, to reinvent the business somewhat in order to adapt better to the new micro and macro environments. Thus the increased need for Bradflo to remain competitive as a manufacturing organisation was identified at the strategic level, which then led to more of a focus within the business towards improvement. After identifying that the improvement would be driven by Lean principles & tools, it was evident that all employees would need to be developed, exposed and educated on the principles of Lean and continuous improvement – after all it is through the continual process of educating, empowering and developing employees on all levels that a business transformation occurs.

This then led to a series of questions being asked.  These were - What options are available to Bradflo to enact this process? And what are the advantages/disadvantages of each option?

Three options for the business were identified:

1.    Develop our own in-house Lean system; Time consuming, need to employ an expert to do this, hence expensive; organisation specific.

2.    Use an external Lean practitioner, as a sensei, with an internal business champion; This is a quicker way to implement but is dependant on the contact teaching hours of the facilitator and with more contact hours comes more expense, can be adapted to an organisation and Lean facilitators generally see many industries and many examples and through their vast experience can facilitate and help yield the desired improvement. Training can be enacted when the organisation needs it so the cost can be controlled somewhat.

3.    Use a government subsidised training initiative titled Competitive Manufacturing and partner with a training provider (and a Lean facilitator) to deliver the training with an internal business champion to coach & support; Enables Bradflo to access a Lean facilitator at virtually no cost for the training, quick to implement, with quick results (2 year program), and the vast experience of the facilitator. Can expose Bradflo to a possible high cost if the program is not pursued all the way to completion. A nationally accredited & recognised qualification.

Bradflo have decided on the third option and have contracted LEAN Rt to deliver your Competitive Manufacturing Program.  I know that your CMI program is less than a month old but what are your early observations?

1.    Acceptance & enthusiasm of our employees;

2.    Excited about improvement;

3.    Gaining a nationally recognised qualification;