In Centre Hall, PA, Hanover Foods—a 100-year-old, family-owned food manufacturer—understands that sustaining excellence isn’t just about what’s grown in the field or produced on the line. It’s also about growing people. With a wide portfolio that spans frozen vegetables, snacks, and ready-to-eat meals, Hanover Foods is committed to continuous improvement in every corner of its operations.

During an initial outreach meeting, IMC engaged Hanover in a deeper conversation about one key area of opportunity: strengthening frontline supervisory skills. Like many manufacturers, Hanover recognized that while its supervisors excelled in technical knowledge, many lacked the leadership and communication tools needed to manage today’s dynamic plant environments.

Plant-Floor Leadership: Tools Beyond the Toolbox

Hanover’s leadership team knew that just as a technician uses the right wrench for a specific repair, supervisors need the right “soft skill” tools to effectively lead, resolve conflict, and maintain morale. In response, IMC proposed a customized “Pathways to Team Success” development program, designed specifically for Hanover’s frontline supervisors.

The multi-session training series focused on practical, immediately applicable skills—leadership fundamentals, clear and empathetic communication, problem-solving, time management, and change management. A strong emphasis was placed on building trust, managing conflict, and coaching – all critical capabilities during Hanover’s intense seasonal production cycles.

To maximize impact, training was held during the off-season, giving participants time to reflect, prepare, and build confidence before peak harvest operations resumed. Each session was designed with real-world plant scenarios in mind, enabling supervisors to return to the floor with both insight and actionable strategies.

Measurable Impact, Human Results

The results were clear. Supervisors reported feeling more confident and equipped to manage daily operations and team dynamics. Participants showed notable improvements in communication, time management, and decision-making. More importantly, the program fostered a stronger, more supportive workplace culture – critical for both employee retention and production performance.

Hanover Foods now has a cohort of emerging leaders ready to help drive productivity while creating a work environment rooted in respect, collaboration, and accountability. The investment wasn’t just in people – it was in long-term performance and organizational health.

Advancing Pennsylvania’s Strategic Vision

This initiative aligns directly with Pennsylvania’s 10-Year Economic Development Strategy, launched by Governor Josh Shapiro’s administration. The strategy prioritizes workforce development, manufacturing resilience, and creating competitive, future-ready businesses.

By equipping supervisors with leadership tools, Hanover Foods is contributing to the strategy’s vision of strengthening the manufacturing sector, building a modern workforce, and enhancing talent retention in a rural food manufacturing and agricultural business. The program also supports the state’s broader goals of encouraging people-first practices and sustainable growth within legacy industries.

In the heart of Northumberland County, Function of Beauty—a fast-growing manufacturer of personalized luxury haircare—has built its brand around customization, innovation, and direct-to-consumer excellence. With its corporate headquarters in New York City, the company chose Paxinos, Pennsylvania, as the home for its manufacturing facility, where approximately 75 employees craft a growing line of hair, body, and skincare products. Since its founding in 2015, the veteran-founded business has experienced remarkable expansion, including major retail partnerships with Target, Walmart, Kroger, and Amazon.

That growth brought new challenges. As production demands increased and new product lines emerged, Function of Beauty recognized the need to improve operational efficiency through automation and leaner processes. Leadership identified a gap in team-wide understanding of Lean manufacturing principles—a critical skillset for eliminating waste and scaling up sustainably. The plant manager turned to the IMC to help launch their Lean journey.

IMC began by delivering a hands-on, full day “Introduction to Lean with Simulation” course, designed to give the team a practical, foundational understanding of Lean thinking. Through simulation and real-world examples, the training covered core concepts like waste elimination, value stream mapping, standard work, and visual management. The team quickly began identifying inefficiencies in their own processes, laying the groundwork for meaningful improvements across the plant.

Encouraged by the success of this initial training, Function of Beauty has committed to deeper development. The team will next complete IMC’s 7-module Lean Manufacturing Level One Practitioner Certification, demonstrating a clear and ongoing investment in process optimization and workforce capability.

Advancing Pennsylvania’s Strategic Vision

Function of Beauty’s Lean initiative reflects the goals of Pennsylvania’s 10-Year Economic Development Strategy, unveiled by Governor Shapiro. The strategy emphasizes strengthening the manufacturing sector, modernizing workplace practices, and building a resilient, future-ready workforce. By upskilling their employees and streamlining production, Function of Beauty is aligning directly with these priorities, positioning itself as a competitive, high-performing manufacturer rooted in Pennsylvania.

Moreover, the company’s focus on continuous improvement and waste reduction supports the strategy’s goals of enhancing operational agility, improving productivity, and ensuring long-term sustainability for manufacturers throughout the Commonwealth. With IMC’s guidance, Function of Beauty is proving that growth and efficiency can go hand-in-hand—and that innovation in manufacturing starts with investing in people.

In early 2025, Andritz Feed and Biofuel—a Muncy, PA-based manufacturing site of the global Andritz Group—took a significant step toward strengthening its commitment to employee health and safety. With more than 80 employees producing bulk material handling equipment, the site has long maintained ISO 9001:2015 certification for quality management. However, the company set a new corporate goal: achieving ISO 45001 certification for Occupational Health and Safety Management by the end of the year.

ISO 45001 is an internationally recognized standard that helps organizations proactively improve their occupational health and safety performance. It provides a framework to reduce workplace risks, enhance employee well-being, and foster a culture of continuous safety improvement. For companies like Andritz, ISO 45001 certification is more than a milestone—it’s a strategic investment in workforce safety, operational efficiency, and global credibility.

Zachary Robb, the site’s Inventory and Methods Manager, recognized that while some progress had been made, the path to full compliance with ISO 45001 remained unclear. Robb had already implemented certain procedures but needed guidance to understand the remaining requirements and how best to align the facility’s operations with the standard.

That’s where IMC stepped in.

Partnering closely with the Andritz team, IMC conducted a comprehensive discovery process. This included a thorough review of documentation and records, interviews with key members of Andritz leadership, and onsite evaluations of day-to-day operations. The focus was on identifying the current level of compliance with ISO 45001 and assessing the existing Occupational Health and Safety Management System.

The result was a detailed and actionable Gap Analysis report that categorized Andritz’s compliance into three areas: fully compliant, partially compliant, and non-compliant. Just as important, the report offered tailored recommendations to close the gaps and build a clear roadmap toward certification.

Thanks to this collaboration, Andritz now has the direction and confidence needed to continue its journey toward ISO 45001 certification. With insights from IMC’s analysis in hand, the team is well-positioned to meet its corporate safety goals by the end of 2025—demonstrating a deep commitment to a safe, healthy, and sustainable workplace.

Supporting the Commonwealth’s Economic Vision

The partnership between IMC and Andritz Feed & Biofuel reflects how statewide economic strategy can be realized through focused, local action. By helping Andritz—a long-standing, 80-employee manufacturer in Muncy—pursue ISO 45001 certification, the project strengthens Pennsylvania’s manufacturing sector through higher safety standards and global-quality alignment. This investment supports not only compliance but also operational excellence, workforce resilience, and long-term competitiveness.

ISO 45001 certification is about more than safety; it’s a strategic move that positions companies like Andritz to thrive in a modern economy. It enhances employee well-being, fosters a culture of accountability, and equips businesses with the tools to adapt and grow. This directly supports the Commonwealth’s goals to build a safer, more agile business climate, modernize the workforce, and ensure manufacturers are ready to compete in a global marketplace—key pillars of Pennsylvania’s 10-Year Economic Development Strategy.

Northway Industries, Inc., located in Middleburg, Snyder County, is a privately held company that manufactures plastic laminated panels, tops, parts and kits. Northway’s operation consists of CNC controlled cutting, milling, routing and banding operations. The market served is OEM suppliers, retailers, schools and institutions. They are FSC certified and conform with LEED specifications as required. The company has engaged in several small projects focused on sustainability including LED lighting with occupancy sensors, monitoring compressed air systems for leakage and an eco-gate system on their dust containment unit that monitors the RPM of unit motors.

Over the past several years, Northway has been working to instill a corporate culture based on Lean manufacturing concepts. While business has been steady, Northway’s leadership recognized potential areas of improvement and decided to start with its order process, from intake to floor. To develop a more effective system in the order process activities, they reached out to the Innovative Manufacturers’ Center (IMC) to assist them in further developing this initiative.

After meeting with the Northway team, it was determined that a continuous improvement program based on Lean manufacturing principles called Winning Teams would be the basis for making the desired improvements. This project empowered employees with the skills and tools needed to identify inefficiencies, streamline workflows and enhance overall operational performance. By focusing on critical areas, such as initial order processing, customer demand interpretation, estimating and materials management, the company would significantly improve its ability to execute and deliver high-quality products with greater speed and precision. In addition, the IMC was able to assist Northway in obtaining a grant through the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) Energy & Manufacturing in Appalachia program that reduced their final costs for the project.

The Winning Teams program combined hands-on training with real-world application to develop a stronger culture of continuous improvement. Employees participated in structured problem-solving exercises, gaining both technical expertise and a deeper understanding of the human side of change management. As a result, Northway Industries has seen measurable gains in productivity, reduced waste and optimized resource utilization, further strengthening its ability to meet customer expectations efficiently and sustainably.

The success of this collaboration with the IMC has reinforced Northway’s reputation as a forward-thinking manufacturer dedicated to Lean principles and operational excellence. With a more agile and efficient production process, the company is well-positioned for long-term growth and enhanced customer satisfaction. Moving forward, Northway remains committed to sustaining its lean culture, continuously refining its processes and fostering innovation across all levels of the organization.

“ Through the Winning Teams program, we increased throughput in our laminate cleaning/inspection area by 18%, which also shortened the time for us to respond to vendors about defective products and to reorder replacements for those products by an average of 1 day. We also reduced the number of orders going from Sales to Order Entry with missing information by 25%. This reduced the processing time for order entry and throughput of an order through Sales and Order Entry by an average of 2.5 days. In partnering with IMC on the Winning Teams project, we equipped our team members with the skills needed to identify and drive waste out of our process and increase efficiency. By working with IMC, we bridge the gap between industry expertise and workforce readiness, creating a seamless integration of innovation and practical application. This collaboration strengthens our impact, driving efficiency, quality, and long-term success.”

Steve Wagner, Director of Training & Development

Northway Industries, Inc.

Rockland Manufacturing Co., located in Bedford, PA with approximately 250 employees, is a medium-sized manufacturer of bulldozer blades, loader buckets, beach cleaning equipment, and land clearing equipment. Rockland primarily serves the crushing, aggregate, and log loading markets.

Rockland was beginning to implement a major change to their long-established production methods. In fact, the current flow had been in place for well over 30 years. The major change was to create a combined production method/department from two formally standalone functions. The change required changes in supervision, ERP tracking, production planning and scheduling, and manufacturing engineering processes.

The change is driven by the need to improve efficiency, specifically by reducing the amount of handling and transportation of certain products. By combining production functions for several of their product lines, both assembly and finish welding functions will be accomplished at the same workstation. Formally, a product would be assembled at one location in the plant, then transported by overhead crane to be staged at the second location until that department had capacity to work on it.

Rockland had already conducted experiments to prove that the change to the production flow would be successful in improving efficiency, but since the change had far-reaching affects throughout most departments within the entire company, management felt that specific training of key stakeholders was needed to help build unified momentum for implementation and asked IMC to provide this training.

The Rockland management team, while in consultation with IMC Business Advisor, Tim Davis, expressed concern about meeting project goals and objectives since the front-line production workers and their direct supervisors were accustomed to years of the current state workflow processes. Many organizations entering significant operational change are very good at getting the proper capital requirements and soft costs calculated and controlled, the weakest link is often underestimating the human side of change. As such, IMC proposed a Change Management training initiative that would complement the capital investment already being made.

Tim Davis expressed, “This training is essential, it is beyond the capital equipment, renovation, and other costs normally associated with significant change, it can make or break the change effort including the need to extend timelines and adjust milestones when employee teams struggle through the transition.”

The IMC team helped Rockland identify key personnel who had responsibility and direct impact on the change requirements. Additionally, the team investigated the organizational requirements compared with the current state of the supervisors and other key personnel to identify gaps and develop a program specifically designed to help the Rockland team navigate a successful transition.

A highly customized change management training initiative was deployed by the IMC. It focused on how to anticipate the implications of change, how to monitor and adapt to change, how to communicate through it, and how to keep changing and improving. This training included interactive exercises to help the participants be more comfortable with the new changes to their workflow, break down potential barriers to implementing change by improving communication, and really focus on the importance of positive changes in production. All customized to align with the requirements for a successful transition to the new process.

Impressed with the results, the Rockland management team reported that the training provided by the IMC was successful in helping their workforce understand the need for change in their production methodology. Particularly, they pointed out that communication about the change improved. The interactive exercises conducted by IMC in the training helped break down communication barriers and improved teamwork. The momentum for moving forward with the production change was achieved, and since then the new assembly/weld function is established and becoming an accepted part of the company’s culture.

“We’re very pleased with the results of the training. It was a great way to break the ice regarding a systemic change in one of our oldest and most experience facilities. By training on change management, discussing the benefits of the change, and how to properly communicate the outcomes of the change, we experienced much less of the typical resistance to change that one usually experiences in any business environment. The project was done faster, with less effort, much less drama, and most importantly, we haven’t had any trouble with making the change stick over time. We’re now building more, more efficiently, together, than ever before.” Bo Pratt, President, Rockland Manufacturing Co.

Furmano Foods, Inc. grows and produces canned vegetable products. It offers tomato, bean, and vegetable products; and formulates ready to use recipes for salads, stews, puffs, sauces, sliders, pizzas, bocaditos, tacos, soups, chili, appetizers, vegetarian, beef, fish, chicken, and pork products. Furmano, like other producers, provides product for others under other labels as well as occasionally runs product for small batch, specialty products. The company serves customers in various sectors, including foodservice, retail, manufacturing, export, and branded and private labels. Furmano was founded in 1921 and is based in Northumberland, Pennsylvania and employs approximately 350 people with an additional 150 seasonal workers.

Furmano proudly combines state-of-the-art agricultural and manufacturing technology with a kinship to the earth that comes from four generations of farming in this region. They grow most of their tomatoes and vegetables in the fertile Susquehanna River Valley and process millions of cases of tomatoes at their plant in Northumberland. They consider themselves stewards of the land and are sensitive to ecological concerns employing farming techniques that are environmentally friendly as well as safe for the surrounding community. Many in the Furmano organization grew up and still live in the area, so they strive to be good corporate citizens and a positive contributor.

Responding to an inquiry by Furmano regarding organizational safety assessments and establishing a new safety culture, IMC met with the company to discuss possible options. In addition to Furmano’s leadership team, IMC Business Advisor Rick Terry brought in trusted IMC third-party consultant, Scott Witmer of EMS Consulting to the site visit as a subject matter expert. In addition to safety objectives, the overall business climate of the organization was discussed. While production growth wasn’t the focus of this meeting, future proactive challenges and opportunities were discussed regarding organizational culture, specifically around safety. There are some issues that the leadership team wants to address before they grow into major concerns and become detrimental to production.

EMS Consulting worked with Furmano to address safety culture and procedures. Scott presented his experiences regarding organizational development and safety protocols to the team as well as the challenges of establishing a new culture of safety in an existing organization. Scott engaged Furmano leadership in the various areas of safety and safety management to begin to gauge the current state of the organization and where they wanted to go with it. The objective was to ensure that Furmano’s maintenance personnel and, where applicable, operators, have appropriate, accurate, written procedures to ensure their safety when cleaning, prepping, or maintaining each machine. The IMC proposed to do this by understanding the hazards, the procedures to be used to avoid those hazards and how to remove locks and / or tags to ensure their safety and those nearby.  Also, clearly documenting this information in a Furmano approved format so the procedures can be used effectively to ensure worker safety and OSHA compliance.

The deliverables to achieve the project objectives included:

• appropriately documenting each LOTO procedure for effective use by Furmano’s personnel
• evaluation of these procedures to ensure they are clear, effective representations of the procedure to follow to be safe when working on the machine.
• providing onsite advice utilizing IMC’s SME during the assessment of the current state of safety protocols
• written procedures, including photographs finalized for use by Furmano personnel

Assessment of the plant equipment and existing LOTO procedures began in early December 2022 and culminated with final documentation submitted to Furmano leadership in June 2023. Based on both a walkthrough of the facility and a review of the existing LOTO records, EMS estimated what equipment in each section of the production facility would require review and procedural documentation. Furmano leadership selected the main production area, approximately 32 LOTO procedures, as the first area to address.

During the work assessing and developing the LOTO procedures, it became evident to the IMC team and Furmano that equipment labeling and posting of LOTO procedures were nearly non-existent. IMC worked with onsite Furmano maintenance support to make sure they concurred on the procedures as the best solutions for the equipment. Trouble spots were identified by missing or broken handles, and other signs of required Preventative Maintenance (PM) were noted throughout the process. The response by Furmano to repair or replace any deficiencies was handled with diligence and completed prior to the end of the project. The overall project resulted in visibility of the LOTO procedures through equipment labeling and posting of the procedures at each location, safer overall environment for all employees, and better coordination between safety and the PM departments. In addition, the established procedures enabled better training resources for safety and PM training in the future.

IMC Facilitates a Value Stream Map for QCast Production Process Improvement

Located in New Berlin PA, (approximately 30 miles south of Williamsport, PA) QCast Aluminum Co. is a family owned, high–quality manufacturer of aluminum sand castings for commercial industries. QCast manufactures all their products in the USA and can produce excellent finishes and sizes of parts, including prototypes and small to large production runs from 1 oz. to 300 lbs. They work with customers to develop a mutually beneficial long-term relationship and have a strong commitment focused on service, quality, deliverability and affordability. They have grown to become one of the highest quality sandcasting companies at the most competitive price.

Situation:

Working with our strategic partner PennTAP, who sponsored an E3 project (Economy, Energy & Environment), the Innovative Manufacturers’ Center (IMC) was engaged to facilitate a Value Stream Map (VSM) to determine why QCast’s production was unable to meet desired delivery times for their customers. The scope of the value stream map began with the core preparation area of production and ended at the finishing area. The VSM continued to track the various operations that included saw, belt sand, blast, drilling and inspection in the finish area.

The Work In Process (WIP) materials for the finishing area were stored in scattered locations causing some delays in finding them for finishing. In addition, the molding process continued to run at a faster pace than finishing could respond, creating a bottleneck in production flow.  An accurate inventory was taken of the WIP at the finishing stage, and it was learned that 3x the original estimate of pieces was there. The mindset within the facility is one that is grounded upon ‘keep the molders running’, which caused overproduction and a choke point in finishing customer orders.

Adding to production flow delays, finishing operators performed excessive amounts of searching, stretching, reaching and bending for the parts resulting in additional non-value added efficiency losses. It was evident that in addition to the overproduction of parts, their multiple locations in the finishing area took time away from actual finishing work thus contributing to not meeting the delivery times promised to their customers.

Solutions:

At the completion of the ‘Current State’ VSM the project team, facilitated by the IMC, determined the ‘Future State’, which led the company to define several objectives. QCast wanted to exceed customer expectations by utilizing an effective pull system that would generate a 7-day throughput with a 4-week lead time, 99% on time delivery and a 100% quality level by September 1, 2023. Through the input of the QCast team, the IMC generated a series of challenges for the company to tackle and record the results over the next several weeks. The first two target conditions were designing a ‘supermarket’ that would visually control the work in progress inventory levels to 3-5 days and to improve the efficiency of the belt sanding area to 85%. The QCast VSM team conducted various experiments to see how best to meet their first target conditions.

Over the next several months the improvement in excess production was moving in the right direction; however, the team was still finding difficulty in addressing the finishing department’s challenges, which were defining standard work and overcoming a shortage of labor.

Results:

Actual inventory being produced was tracked on a weekly basis, which resulted in the reduction of WIP sitting at the finishing stage by 54%. The finishing department continued to see challenges to meet the target condition until a member of the VSM team tried an experiment with the finishing of parts by running them through a tumbler; a process used in their sister company’s metal fabrication process.  The results were very promising. After continued experimentation with various aspects of the tumbling process including time, media and actual parts to be finished, the company has calculated that they could increase finishing productivity by up to 300%. Because of the IMC’s VSM facilitation, the members of the QCast team were able to implement a series of experiments and apply the continuous improvement culture that enables them to find a solution far beyond the original expectations. The company is planning on investing in the appropriate equipment during the first quarter of 2024 that will include the tumbling stage in their finishing process enabling them to reduce overall throughput and meet the delivery times their customers expect.

Testimonial:

“The Value Stream Mapping exercise conducted by the IMC enabled us to visually see the overall production process and the areas we needed to target for improvement. Without this process, QCast may not have identified the key areas needed to meet our overall objectives. We look forward to continuing to work with the IMC in the future.” Terry Arnold, General Manager, QCast Aluminum

Contact IMC:

To learn how IMC can assist your Central PA manufacturing company with process improvement, contact us at 800-326-9467 or info@imcpa.com.

Marcal Paper aka Nittany Paper Mills, LLC, is owned by Atlas Holdings, LLC.  Atlas was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut. Atlas and its affiliates own 16 companies employing nearly 20,000 associates. With more than 100 facilities across the globe, Atlas generates an estimated $4 billion in annual revenue. Nittany Paper Mills in Lewistown, PA manufactures and provides recycled tissue and towels for use in homes, schools, restaurants, hotels and hospitals.

Nittany Paper Mills is investing in new equipment and technologies to become even more competitive. These include new production lines, new packing lines, robotics and more. Such new technologies are disruptive as they change how work is done. In an effort to ensure the successful implementation of these investments, Marcal sought training for its managers to prepare them to manage change. Specifically, training to help managers understand the psychology of change and how to accelerate change. In other words, they wanted to help their managers to further develop their skills to be more effective at leading change. Without these skills, investments on this level may not have the desired impacts.

After the training, with these skills now developed in their managers, Nittany Paper Mills was confident that the implementation of the new equipment and technologies would be successful, driving confidence to make the investment of more than $500 million.

“We make investments where and when our workforce is skilled and ready.  The training was a solid foundation for supervisor development”

Steve Prentiss, Vice President of Human Resources, Marcal Paper

Metal Integrity, a sheet metal fabricator and machine shop in State College PA, was having continued workforce issues, leading to challenges to meet customer orders. Through a national Advanced Manufacturing Technology Solutions grant, IMC helped the company implement advanced robotics & automation technology. They quickly realized production improvements with the first job run on the automated system of 200-250%, seeing an increase in production from 180 parts per week to 475 parts per week.

After attending an AMTS sales training program in Fall 2022, knowing of Metal Integrity’s interest in automation, IMC’s Dana Gordon reached out to Metal Integrity directly to discuss.  The sheet metal fabricator and machine shop was having continued workforce issues, leading to challenges to meet customer orders.

Support provided; tools utilized

Upon meeting with Metal Integrity, IMC helped them refine their automation strategy, which consisted not only of robotic machine tending, but also an investment in a new lathe with a bar feeder along with sheet metal quoting automation software. As the client was already progressing down the path toward machine tending, there was no need to complete a full assessment; IMC and the AMTS lead for Pennsylvania instead met with client to validate their robotic machine tending approach.

Lessons Learned

Overall, the project was a success, however the timeline was longer than anticipated. The project hit various challenges during the implementation phase, leading to a longer than desired learning curve.  These challenges were primarily related to the inexperience of both the integrator and the robot manufacturer.

The first challenge dealt with the performance of the Productive Robotics OB7 robot once a dual gripper was added.  The robot motion became very erratic and was unable to perform the programmed tasks.  It was later discovered that the robot programming interface was inadequate for making the needed adjustments for the higher weight of the end effector and the extended tool center point (TCP).  It took weeks of troubleshooting by both the integrator, Exact Machine Tool, and the manufacturer, Productive Robotics to make this discovery, further delaying production implementation.

The next major challenge involved the workholding setup.  As is common in mill machine tending systems, Exact Machine Tool installed a Airvise AV-T-4 pneumatic vice that was integrated into the robot controller.  However, the pneumatic vice was unable to hold the tight tolerances required of the target part. In the end, Metal Integrity found a solution that allowed them to automate their standard Kurt workholding system that already held needed tolerances with a Rapid Design Solutions CNC vise actuator.

An ROI of 4 months was expected prior to launching the project and that will be exceeded, depending on upcoming parts volumes.  Metal Integrity has already realized production improvements on the first job run on the automated system of 200-250%, seeing an increase in production rate from 180 parts/week to 475 parts per week.  For this part, based on reallocated labor alone, they will see an ROI of 6 months.  When the increase in production for parts run off-shift with a conservative value applied to machine runtime is considered, it surpasses a 3-month ROI.

In hindsight, going with an experienced system integrator may have reduced the implementation difficulties experienced in working with an equipment distributor. However, the low price point of the system and the fact that they are now in operation, makes it challenging to determine if that would have been advantageous. Even considering the delays and additional time required of Metal Integrity personnel, the ROI is in an acceptable range.

This project made possible through MEP AMTS grant funds.

Diamondback Automotive Accessories, located in Philipsburg, PA with 117 employees, manufactures load-bearing pick-up truck covers and accessories used primarily by outdoor enthusiasts.

Diamondback continues at a rapid growth rate at their Phillipsburg facility, experiencing 25% growth in 2020, followed by 45% growth in 2021. As the company enjoys rapid growth, it also experienced an increase in customer complaints.  The main reason for the customer dissatisfaction was errors in picking the right parts to be shipped along with the truck cover. As a percentage of orders, greater than 2% contained picking errors.

IMC’s Continuous Improvement Expert, Jeff Kopenitz, facilitated a dedicated team of Diamondback employees to focus on the errors in the picking areas. Over the course of eight days of on-site facilitation plus off-site coaching, Jeff guided the team through various Lean tools such as A3 thinking, PDCA cycles, DMAIC projects, FEMAs and Coaching Katas.

As a result of these efforts, manufacturing communications were improved, key parts visualization was enhanced using shadow boards, labelling was enhanced, equipment such as scales were deployed, and processes were changed and improved. In one year, the picking errors percentage has dropped from 2.29% to 1.29%. Diamondback is well on their way to achieving their next target goal of less than 1% picking errors.

“The results of this project far exceeded my expectations. Every minute and every dollar spent with IMC has resulted in tremendous returns. With IMC’s help, we are achieving our mission of being a company that people love to buy from.” Gerald Gardner, Quality Manager