1. The Client & Their Challenge Highlights of the Intervention Benefits Delivered Financial Operational Ways of Working Client Testimonial sa Started in 1991, Candy Canvas is a diversification brain child of Phil and Sandy Candy from the Australian outback. The company has enjoyed extremely rapid growth from its cottage industry origins and product range has grown from swags and bags to seat covers and now camper units. Growing pains in daily operations and a continued need to resist the fierce competition from cheap imports, the business identified specific needs to: focus on the biggest issues and then prioritize an improvement plan to align with the business strategy; develop a more pro- active working culture while not losing their ‘country roots’; and, adopt lean thinking throughout the business to ensure profitable growth. improvement. We designed a customised programme under the government funded Enterprise Connect scheme We carried out highly interactive Lean Awareness training sessions to demonstrate lean thinking in the workplace We mapped the Camper production process, listening and recording employees concerns and observations We identified the top four problems We developed a new weekly production schedule with a new visual tracking system Stabilised the variation in production lead time of camper production from 3-12 weeks to 3 weeks production cycle Reduced production cycle from 3 weeks to 3 days Reduce the lead time of swag production from 3 weeks to 2.6 days Introduced inventory management and scheduling methods Organized business into different operation units and set priorities Nurtured a Continuous Improvement culture with daily meetings to tackle issues and problem in a structured manner Dramatically improved workplace organisation ‘We used to take 3 weeks to make a camper. 12 months ago when I said we would be able to produce a camper in 1 week no one believed it would be possible. We now do it in 3 days and when I say one day we’ll be able to do it in 2 days the staff believe that we might be able to get there. Rick Candy, Operations Manager, Candy Canvas. Implementing Lean Thinking at Candy Canvas

2. What we did and found? How we progressed the client on their journey Summary & next steps sa The company set themselves a clear and bold challenges at the outset of their lean journey: to focus on the biggest issues and then prioritise an improvement plan to align with the business strategy; to develop a more pro-active working culture while not losing their country roots; to adopt Lean Thinking throughout the business and ensure accountability for lean improvement. These were met and exceeded. The challenge facing Candy Canvas now is to maintain the improvement momentum achieved in the early stages of their journey. Exciting times lies ahead. The top four problems were identified as being: Unstable production caused by last minutes changes in production schedule Lateness in obtaining vehicle measurements from clients Poor workplace organization leading to poor inventory control Production based on a casual job shop system, with no concept of flow production. Based on the insight gained from the mapping exercise, the team moved quickly to look at stabilising the production lead time in order to provide reliable delivery date to the client as well as better manage the procurement of parts. The team focused on a target lead time of 3 weeks, which was achieved within 2 months. Reducing the target to 2 weeks was achieved in 3 months. Once this was achieved the team set themselves a target of 3 days – finally achieved after 9 months! At Candy Canvas we took variation out of the camper production process and dramatically reduce production lead-time over a 9 months period Detailing the Intervention at Candy Canvas At Candy Canvas we demonstrated how a little insight can go a long way Jan 2012 Sep 2012