Millar Western, McMillan Bloedel, Crofton Pulp and Paper, Pacific Forest Products--Richard Clark has more than 30 years experience in the wood products industry. His fields of expertise range from executive leadership to production management, mill construction, and business development.
The semi-retired former Vice President of Solid Wood Products at Millar Western, one of Western Canada’s largest privately owned forest product businesses, is a great believer in continuous improvement processes.
"My objective," says Clark, "is to create an environment where people can do their job, do it well, and do it with a sense of pride and ownership while maximizing earnings."
The secret to a successful program resides in understanding the components of a good improvement process. Clark recently worked with Millar Western’s two Alberta sawmills.
Plum Creek Columbia Falls
We brought in the PQI group at Plum Creek, Columbia Falls Lumber, after seeing the success that they had at another of the Plum Creek facilities. The success at that facility as well as the methodology that PQI uses convinced our team that they could have the same or greater success at our facility.
Dean and his group came onboard, conducted an initial assessment to determine a possible starting point and, following a joint review of this assessment, we mutually decided on a program and we were off and running.
Management’s commitment to this program is essential to the degree of success that can be achieved. The greater the degree to which management and crews take to heart the coaching of Dean and his staff, the quicker the results will occur. This point is what makes PQI different from other consulting groups. PQI does not come into your facility and tell you what your operating targets should be or for that matter exactly how to achieve them. What they do is give everyone the coaching in leadership skills and processes that allow you and your group to achieve the targets that you want. The PQI group will however assist you in establishing these targets based on data collection and current operating statistics.
The success at Columbia Falls came within the first 6 months of PQI being onboard. We saw productivity improvements at our primary equipment of 10%-15%. This magnitude of improvement, without capital infusion other than the cost of PQI, translates into significant additional cash flow at the end of the month. There is absolutely no question that a facility will see a net positive return by using PQI.
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