Faced with increased production volumes, Garden Fresh realized it needed to improve its processes by developing people skills.

In organizations experiencing rapid growth, increased volumes are rarely accompanied by process improvements and an investment in people skills. This is exactly what happened to Garden Fresh.

Tuinderij Vers is a Dutch vegetable processing company specializing in cutting, mixing and packaging fruits and vegetables into ready-to-eat products. We supply supermarkets and food services with a range of ready-to-eat vegetables, vegetable mixes, salad mixes, raw vegetables, ready-to-eat salads and meal boxes.

Since 2015, we have partnered with Vezet, which has significantly affected our growth. Over the past decade, the volumes we have to process daily have grown significantly, and so has our workforce (the number of employees has actually increased fivefold - today we employ 650 people). Our production runs 16 hours a day and the remaining time is spent cleaning. In the past, we always focused on meeting our production goals for the day, but recently we realized that we were not paying enough attention to how we did the work. As a result, we challenged ourselves to find a better way of working. That's when we found out that the company could only grow if our people grew with it.

LEAN IMPLEMENT

Last September, our leadership team, including myself, participated in a Lean Black Belt training from the Lean Management Institute. The next step was to involve the frontline staff through Orange Belt training. Initially, some team members were skeptical and found it difficult to internalize the Lean principles and practices. It seemed counterproductive to them to devote time from daily work to "Lean". Over time, however, the team realized that Lean is not separate from our work; it is the way we need to do our work.

Patrick's support was crucial in ensuring the buy-in of our people. As a former Vezet employee and someone who has visited Garden Fresh often in the past, he knows the language we speak at the plant. Working with him and LMI for the lean training was a good decision.

The Orange Belt course for operators, held in October 2023, was our way of investing in our people. Participants were encouraged to think about the real issues and root causes of the problems they faced. They went to den together and visited each other's areas to understand the work of their colleagues and how it affected their own work. This interaction opened their eyes to new perspectives and solutions.

FACING CHALLENGES AND FINDING SOLUTIONS

Lean was a new concept for the Orange Belt group, and their initial skepticism was evident. During the training sessions, we guided them through Purpose, Process and People to help them see the problems. We taught them A3 Thinking, which involves defining the real problem, understanding the current state and analyzing the process. They conducted in-depth problem investigations, a new experience for them. We reviewed their A3s daily and assessed their progress, creating a supportive environment where people increasingly asked questions and supported each other.

Although Garden Fresh met its production goals and thus did not have a "burning platform" per se, there were underlying problems with the work. The course was key to unlocking people's ability to see and address such problems.

For example, from a waste perspective, we discovered that we were cutting vegetables too quickly. In other words, we were doing push production instead of pull production. By reducing the cutting speed and aligning it with downstream processes, we reduced waste by 9% on the pak choi line and by 5% on the bell bell pepper line.

We also implemented a SMED(single-minute exchange of die) project, which reduced our film changeover time on the packaging machines from 15 to 8 minutes.

Another project dealt with the cost of washing clothes - an idea that came from the housekeeping department. People needed a new uniform every day, and some used up to two sets a day. By reducing this to 1.25 uniforms per person per day through 5S (separate, arrange, clean, standardize, stand), we achieved significant savings.

Maintenance was also improved by prioritizing technicians' work based on the problems they encountered each day, allowing them to spend more time on equipment and reducing machine downtime.

We also introduced start-up meetings each morning to discuss previous shifts and plan the next day. This change fostered a culture of looking ahead rather than blaming, which improved communication and understanding throughout the plant. For example, if there is understaffing in a particular area, operators can be moved quickly to avoid problems and maintenance can be done immediately if a machine is not working.

A3 THINKING AND COLLABORATION

A3 Thinking enabled people to understand and really learn to see the gaps. As they became more accustomed to the approach, they began to talk to each other and understand the work. This not only gave more meaning to their tasks, but also highlighted how their work contributed to the company's mission. The more often they used A3, the more enthusiastic they became, with even the most skeptical members leading the team's improvement efforts.

Leadership realized how important it was to clearly explain the work, roles and expectations. We emphasized why we do Lean and why we want everyone to grow with the company. By learning to see the process from start to finish, people moved beyond silo thinking and began to understand the meaning of pull production. In fact, the success of these projects lay in the fact that people worked together and solved each other's problems. We are transcending silos and developing value stream thinking throughout the organization.

We recently conducted an internal evaluation and confirmed that people are now very happy with the Lean training and changes. They are now more satisfied with their work, something we greatly appreciate, and that is because they are more autonomous in their problem-solving efforts. A3 Thinking has taught them to look at the root causes of problems instead of relying on quick fixes. We are now starting a Green Belt cycle to bring more coaching skills into the company and establish a proper coaching structure. Over time, this will make us independent in our continuous improvement efforts.

LESSONS AND FUTURE PLANS

Our most important lesson is that dedicating time to developing people is a fundamental investment. While it may slow you down in the beginning, it will eventually pay off by stimulating our growth.

We also learned that people have the answers to our problems; they just need to learn how to find them. That's why the Toyota philosophy of "making things by making people" (monozukuri by hitozukuri) resonates so well with us!

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