Cascade Corporation Success Story

Cascade had engaged with the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership (GaMEP) at Georgia Tech for more than 10 years on process improvement and quality projects, which meant the organization was already exposed to a culture of continuous improvement. Merritt wanted to take the improvement efforts to the next level, by digging deeper into their lean efforts while also bringing in project managers with other types of expertise to look at different aspects of their business.

Technology

One of the first areas Merritt wanted to explore was how the company could use technology to improve efficiency, while also considering employee experience. Some parts of the company’s production process were necessary, but could be repetitive or tedious for workers. Finding and keeping employees to do this work had been difficult, especially in a competitive labor market.
To combat this problem, the company began work with GaMEP technology project manager, Tom Sammon.

Sammon evaluated 10 equipment areas to identify opportunities for modernization, automation, or upgrade. He then built a technology roadmap that gave the company a step-by-step approach to strategically incorporate new technology throughout the facility and prepare for future growth.
One of the first projects on the roadmap was implementing the use of collaborative robots, or “cobots,” to complete high drudgery processes throughout the plant, freeing up employees to complete more value-added tasks. Sammon scoped out processes that could effectively be performed by cobots and helped the company create an RFP for their specific needs.
Sammon’s continuous improvement background also allowed him to incorporate suggestions for process improvement projects along the way.
Merritt said, “You don’t want to automate a bad process. We worked with GaMEP to focus on flow first and then look for opportunities for automation.”

Lean Process Improvement

Over the course of the next several months, the company worked with GaMEP on a series of operational excellence projects, including time studies for capacity planning, process mapping, layout analysis, and quality management system implementation.

In the midst of these projects, Merritt realized that a visual management system would be helpful to communicate all of the recent changes to employees. Merritt connected with GaMEP operational excellence project manager, Brad Wood. Wood helped the team implement a Managing for Daily Improvement program.

Wood worked with the team to map out their process, design visual communication boards, and develop key metrics. In addition, the management team began a daily GEMBA walk process, walking the floor, visiting each board, and talking with employees about what was working well, what could be improved, and how the management team could help with those improvements. The management team could then prioritize actions and mitigate risks for the day.

Merritt said, “This project really helped everyone begin to understand the critical numbers and start to view the business from the same perspective. It got us all on the same page and made it easy to understand how each person’s work contributed to overall success.”

Energy and Sustainability

In addition to efficiency and production goals, Cascade Corporation wanted to improve sustainability and achieve long-term carbon reduction goals. To help the facility in Warner Robins meet those goals, Kelly Grissom, GaMEP energy and sustainability project manager, completed a no-cost energy and sustainability assessment through the Industrial Training and Assessment Center (ITAC) program.

The comprehensive report included an assessment of energy use and carbon emissions produced, recommendations for how to make adjustments and investments throughout the plant to lower them, and a cost-benefit analysis of each recommendation.

Completing the assessment also made the company eligible to apply for grant funding through the ITAC Implementation Grant to offset the cost of new equipment needed to put the recommendations in place.

The company has begun to implement some of the simple recommendations already and is planning to utilize the ITAC funding alongside its own investment to install a solar array within the next three to five years. In the meantime, they have begun to offset their emissions by purchasing solar power produced by a solar farm in Houston County, Georgia.

Merritt said, “One of the great benefits of the ITAC report is that it makes it really easy to communicate to the next level of management and explain what needs to be done at each plant to achieve your goals in a cost-effective way.”