Decisions made during tough times usually make or break a company. However, companies are equally vulnerable when experiencing periods of rapid growth and for those companies, planning for the future is critical. Growth for the sake of it is fraught with danger, but by ensuring the right practices are in place early, you can save yourself a lot of heartache as Totalfab discovered.

As a sheetmetal and steel fabrication company, Totalfab commenced as Thuringowa Sheetmetal and Steel Fabrication in March 2001, when a workshop was set up at The North Queensland Small Business Development Centre. Due to rapid growth and the demand for products and services outside the Thuringowa area, the business changed its name to Totalfab in 2002.

Totalfab experienced amazing growth of 360% in its first year and 196% in its second and third years of operation. While growth ‘slowed’ to 60% in its fourth year, it’s still a main area of concern for Totalfab’s Founder and Managing Director Marcel McLeod.

Marcel McLeod and TotalFab’s contribution to the local economy has been recognised with two business accolades. This includes an award as the 2005 Townsville Chamber of Commerce Small Business Person of the Year and as a finalist in the 2005 Australian Institute of Management, Management Business Excellence Awards for Owner/Manager.

“We initially spoke to our local State Development Centre in Townsville who recommended we attend QMI Solutions’ ProEdge program that addressed some of the issues we were facing,” McLeod said.

The ProEdge Manufacturing Excellence program is a five-day intensive program that discusses the principles of world class manufacturing, with particular reference to Lean Manufacturing and attendees devise an action plan to apply these principles to the needs of their individual business.

“The ideas of best practice manufacturing talked about at ProEdge really open our eyes to some of the things we could do to dramatically improve the business. Some things we were already doing, but didn’t know they had a name. Overall though, ProEdge showed us that we were falling short on a lot of things and our approach was ad hoc.”

McLeod says the biggest challenge was organising the flow of the workshop, which he commenced with a 5S initiative. Also obvious was the requirement for more workshop space to cope with the company’s growth.

“Rapid growth over the first few years meant that we crammed a lot of things into quite a small workshop, which we incorrectly thought was the 5S Step 2 - Set-in-Order. The thought behind the placement of most machines were its close proximity to a power point. When we look back on it, it was crazy, we were dragging steel into the workshop to cut material and then dragging it back outside again.”

Totalfab before 5S	TotalFab after 5S

“5S open our eyes to a lot of things. It is basically the starting point to Lean and it’s difficult to continue to implement Lean if you can’t even do 5S properly. We are still in the process of implementing 5S and fine tuning it to suit Totalfab and achieve sustainability of the process as much as possible.”

“It was good timing when we opened a new workshop and we were able to put demarcation lines in place and standardise the way the workshop should look, but the danger of falling back into the same old practices is always present. We tracked flow through the workshop using cycle times so we could trap more accurate data. This greatly helped the planning of jobs including the allowance for, and potential improvement of, set-up times. QMI helped us with a number of tools to achieve this.”

Results of another 5S initiative at Totalfab

McLeod said people issues were especially important to Totalfab given that the company grew from 4 employees in 2001 to 18-30 presently.

“The cause of many of our problems was an over reliance on people driving the process rather than the process driving the people. Changing this approach to the latter, has now eased the induction process for new staff significantly. I am now confident that new staff are up to speed with our processes within two weeks. With a standardised process in place that people understand, you have a more reliable and steady flow, which you can then improve if needed.”

Marcel McLeod says the knowledge obtained through ProEdge provided a great understanding of what defines a world class manufacturer, but they gained a good idea of the gaps between practices and performance through QMI Solutions’ benchmarking tool.

QMI Solutions benchmarked Totalfab’s practices and performance using the Manufacturing Microscope tool conducted by a facilitator from the Townsville State Development Centre. It revealed a score of 51 for practices and 59 for performance. World class companies rate 80 or above in practices and performance.

The Manufacturing Microscope assesses companies compared to proven practices used by world class companies and highlights areas of improvement. While a company may score low against a particular practice, an area that scored higher may need more urgent attention.

One of the areas requiring attention emphasised by the benchmark was ‘Visual Performance Measurement and Reporting’.

“This area for improvement comes back to the process driving the people. Instead of relying on individual assessment and experience, you are able to have clear processes that anyone can follow so there are standard work practices expected of each employee. Without reducing productivity, this lessens any gap between employees’ performance and ensures a smother work flow.”

Totalfab's VPM initiative

“The tools that QMI gave us in capturing job and customer data are used daily and are something I want to develop further to give us a competitive edge. If there’s an area in which we are lacking, I would say that we still need to refine our people versus processes issues. Once we get that right we’ll be virtually unstoppable.”

McLeod says other issues identified by the benchmarking process involve putting more processes in place for dealing with customers and suppliers as well as the formalisation of strategies to boost an understanding of company direction across Totalfab.

“The benchmarking process reinforced to me that we still have a lot of work to do. But it’s not like we don’t know where to start. The benchmark has clearly given us areas for improvement, which we are working to make sure we improve on our next score. And we can’t forget to always be looking to improve those things we have already put in place. Sustaining all the good work we’ve already done is the key.”

He says it’s important to maintain momentum and not let congratulating yourself on every achievement slow you down.

“It’s good to be hard on yourself. So many other companies sweep bad performance under the carpet without really investigating the reasons why unsatisfactory results continue to occur. And the benefits do come. We currently service the mining and construction industries, but I feel these practices have enabled us to align more closely to the needs of the mining industry, which I expect to the major focus for Totalfab’s future,” McLeod says.

“While I can safely say we are not a world class company yet, we have a world class attitude. This is a big step in being sure we can deliver on our promise to customers. We are now in the process of constructing a large workshop to increase our capacity and provide additional benefits to clientele.”

“QMI has been a central force in helping us achieve all of this, helping us ease the transition from a small business to a medium size company. Coping with the growth Totalfab has experienced has not been an easy task. Without what we have learnt through QMI, we could have spiraled out of control and who knows where we would be now.”

“When people from the industry visit Totalfab, they are amazed at some of the systems we have in place and sometimes make comment that they don’t have the time to implement such a luxury. I say it’s a necessity, not a luxury.”