Oregon Lean Consortium Open To New Members

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After another successful program year, the Oregon Lean Consortium is now open to new members for 2020.

The Oregon Lean Consortium is a tight-knit group of companies that learn Lean principles and methods, then apply them in each other’s businesses. Each company engages three people who are trained and serve on improvement events—called “kaizen”—at different sites throughout the year.

These kaizen events involve direct, hands-on changes at the hosting company with a professional facilitator. The team makes rapid changes to immediately reduce waste and help create standard work for a process.

Members reported significant improvements when they met for report-outs at the completion of the 2019 program year. Some examples:

  • Created standard work for bareroot tree grading & processing at Robinson Nursery of McMinnville that reduced process time by 62% and improved productivity by 29%.
  • Developed a new way of packing orders at JLPN Liners of Salem that improved ergonomics and cut the time it takes to pack a crate by 40%.
  • Reduced clutter, created standard work and developed visual controls to reduce wasted steps and inventory build-up in the receiving process at Farmington Gardens of Hillsboro.
  • Cut lead time for sticking cuttings from 1,155 minutes to 6 minutes at Peoria Gardens of Albany, increasing productivity 86% on the process.

“This program not only helps build teams; it builds leaders,” said Jonathan Villaseñor of Robinson Nursery. “This consortium is the summit when it comes to realizing potential and playing to individual strengths.”

Consortium Expands in 2020

New this year is an Associate Member category, created for companies who don’t want to host an improvement event, but wish to learn and participate with events. This type of membership gives exposure to the improvement process, and provides value through developing business relationships.

A new Ag Industry Executive Forum will also be launched this year. Company leaders will meet to discuss their challenges and how they overcame them. This quarterly in-person gathering is for C-suite only (owner, GM, president/CEO, EVP). Registration is based on individual participation.

Training will begin in February. For more information about the Oregon Lean Consortium and the process of applying to join, contact Elizabeth Peters, epeters@petersco.net or 503-250-2235.

‘Lean’ nurseries boost productivity

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Photo By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI Capital Press – Published Jan 10, 2020

Mateusz Perkowski of the Capital Press newspaper recently highlighted ways nurseries have effectively applied Lean principles in the past year.

The story quoted three businesses who have deployed Lean principles to identify and reduce waste in processes: Peoria Gardens of Albany, Weyerhaeuser Turner Regeneration, and JLPN of Salem. Here’s an excerpt:

“In retrospect, the inefficiencies at Peoria Gardens near Corvallis, Ore., were hiding in plain sight.

Though the problems now seem glaring, the nursery’s managers and workers never noticed simply because that’s how things had always been done, said Ben Verhoeven, the company’s president.

The company’s eyes were opened to these issues last year while participating in the Oregon Lean Consortium, which helps nurseries and other businesses adopt the waste-cutting principles of “lean” production.

By “co-locating” all the necessary equipment in one place and clarifying each worker’s role in “sticking” cuttings into containers, Peoria Gardens developed a continuous flow of filling the plug trays with new plants. Trays were made available as needed, reducing the wait time and unnecessary inventory.

With these simple changes, the nursery was able to cut its “sticking” crew from 20 to 11 people, a labor reduction of 45%. Meanwhile, the amount of time required to plant each cutting decreased from about 8 seconds to 4.5 seconds per plug tray cell.”

Read the full story online here.