After much hard work and commitment from everybody in the company, the Volgren Transformation project is well on the way to implementation.
Volgren introduced its plan for Business Transformation in late 2013, in line with a new business strategy and improvement targets necessary for us to continue growing and improving as Australia’s largest bus-building company.
The Transformation has been driven by Volgren’s imperatives to maintain competitiveness; to be a sustainable business; to improve our safety, quality and delivery performance; and to improve the working environment for all Volgren employees.
Everyone at the company, at all levels – from senior managers to those on the shop floor – have been engaged, helping to develop both the vision and strategy of the Business Transformation.
Volgren CEO Peter Dale has thanked everyone involved: “The Volgren Transformation is changing the way we do things and moving us in the right direction. We are picking up speed and gaining momentum,” he said.
“While the change we are going through is exciting, I very much appreciate it can also be confronting and challenging. I congratulate and thank everyone involved for their contribution and dedication”.
The Transformation has been built around ensuring a defined environment for success – an environment based on people, process, material, tools, visual control and information.
In Pre-Production we have:
• Introduced a Management Operation System that, importantly, includes a Customer Relationship Management system.
• Developed processes to ensure accuracy and acceptance within Sales activities.
• Introduced a Program Manager to co-ordinate all necessary information and parts on time between departments.
In Production we have:
• Ensured provision of all necessary parts, tools and information to increase efficiency and work flow within each facility.
So far there have been a number of milestones in the project at our facilities across Australia.
We commenced the roll-out of the Transformation activities at our Perth facility in January 2014. This was followed by our Brisbane facility in April and then Melbourne facility where the complexity was greater due to the variety of customers and product mix in July 2014.
The roll-out activities have included:
• Training in key methods; upgraded factory layouts; changes to material handling and stores practices.
• Improvements in tooling and equipment availability.
• A well-defined roadmap that communicates a high level plan for all builds.
• Putting in place procedures and systems for monitoring and measuring safety, quality and delivery performance.
Engaging with our employees and problem solving are the key links in reaching the necessary end result in the Volgren Transformation – and that will come with full implementation by mid-2015.