While the employment outlook in Oregon has been more than 10 percent grim this year, several companies in Yamhill County are adding employees and expanding their production. Meggitt Polymer Solutions, Mission Foods and Community Plate (See separate story) are together adding more than 60 staff members as their businesses expand.
Jody Christensen, executive director of the McMinnville Economic Development Partnership, credits much of the Meggitt’s and Mission’s success to old-fashioned business values she calls “lean” management: they’ve reduced waste and increased responses to customer demands.
“We’re not out of the storm completely, but I think we’re going to see some amazing things happen in McMinnville,” said Christensen. “The first quarter of 2011 is on an upswing.”
Meggitt and Mission are among several local businesses that are part of the “lean team” — formally the Mid-Willamette High Performance Consortium — a group sponsored by the federal Workforce Investment Board and administered locally by Job Growers, Inc. Companies who join the consortium (at no cost) get free training by professionals who educate staff to be more efficient. Training aims at eliminating waste in the process of production — from wasted time, warehouse space, products, energy, quality and a host of other areas of waste. In addition, co-operating companies learn to respond quickly to customer demands with a variety of approaches, from retooling to produce new products, to retraining staff to meet customer demands.
The local “lean team” formed about three years ago, following the lead of Freelin-Wade.
The Region 3 consortium, including Yamhill, Polk and Marion counties, has about 18 official member companies, all of whom share expert resources that help them stay in business through tough times and expand when demand increases, as Meggitt and Mission are doing now. Freelin-Wade, Oregon Lithoprint, Betty Lou’s, NW UAV, Cascade Steele, BASi and Dundee Fruit, among others, are also formally or informally part of the local group of companies that share ideas.
“We’re seeing remarkable things from these companies,” Christensen said. High performance companies stand ready to create products on demand.
“They don’t have a warehouse full of widgets they’re trying sell. They ask: ‘Customer, what do you need?’” she said.
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Businesses don’t have to be huge to benefit from “lean” thinking. One participant was taught to reduce her business accounts receivable functions from eight hours to 45 minutes, Christensen said. Another hair salon owner was able to rethink the arrangement of her stations and flow of customer services, to reduce steps and eliminate wasted products.
Jeremy Lodge, vice president of operations at the McMinnville branch of the international Meggitt Polymer Solutions, is understandably upbeat, having hired 30 shop staff, two engineers, two quality inspectors and a lab person in the last few months. The expansion has added an additional shift and more than $300,000 in new machinery and improvements to meet the demands for the parts his company manufactures.
Meggitt Polymer Solutions, based in Loughborough, United Kingdom, and in McMinnville, designs and manufactures various seals and silicon products used in commercial and military aerospace applications such as aircraft.
“We’re in boom time. We can’t make parts fast enough,” Lodge said.
Lodge is quick to attribute Meggitt’s success to “lean” activities — reducing waste and increasing response to customer demands. The leaner business has outlasted, and out-bid, competition for its products and designs, making it one of McMinnville’s largest employers today. While the economy lagged, Meggitt flourished, adding about 70 employees in the past year. Some 268 people work at Meggitt, almost all drawn from the local area, Lodge said.
Two months ago, the manufacturer had two shifts working five days a week. Today, it has three shifts working six days.
Christensen said that Meggitt officials tightened up operations at their facility and used the extra space for additional production.
“That’s the way it’s supposed to work,” said Christensen.
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Meanwhile, Mission Foods is adding about 16 new employees and a new line to process corn, according to McMinnville manager Steve Helzer. The line will be up and running in April, he said.
The company has been operating in McMinnville as Diane Foods since the 1960s, and as part of the Mission Foods family since 1984. In 2000, the McMinnville manufacturer faced closure, potentially putting more than 100 people out of work. But the company didn’t close, and today, is expanding its local production and adding employees.
Mission Foods was founded in 1949 in Monterrey, Mexico, replacing the traditional stone-grinding process with a radically more efficient hammer-milling process. This new process that reduced labor and waste also yielded a better tortilla, according to company officials. Today, the company is headquartered in Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas.
Those interested in consortium membership can learn about its benefits and talk to current members at a meeting from 8 to 10 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 25, at West Salem Roth’s Hospitality Center. 1130 Wallace Road N.W. For more information about joining the consortium, call Christensen, 503-474-0544, or Pat Gross, executive director of Job Growers, 503-581-4505. All sizes and types of businesses are welcome.
