Building profits with Lean

JLPN Liners in Salem, Ore., has spent many years making production more efficient, resulting in a superior tree liner. Nursery president John Lewis was implementing Lean principles into his operation before he was introduced to the concept. Lean eliminates waste in processes, including growing plants. Learn how John has implemented Lean and how his employees really appreciate the benefits.

Growing up in the nursery industry, his first exposure to Lean was around the age of three, and his grandfather turned on the nursery's first 36-foot tree seedling grading conveyor belt, one that John remembers "riding." Fast-forward 30 years later, and John's daughter was taking rides on the same belt, which sat beside two more belts he had built for the purpose of mechanizing the seedling grading process.

"At JLPN, we have spent years trying to automate our processes -- from the time my grandfather saw the benefits of front-loading seedlings on a conveyor belt, until modern days where we have in-line soil mixers and mechanical processes abound," says John. "The goal has always been to let the machine do the work, let the machine dictate the pace, faster, and more efficiently, thus eliminating waste and making a process easier with less margin for error or defects. Our tendency has always been to look at processes through the eyes of 'efficacy' or effective efficiency, and while that orbited around Lean principles, we still had a long way to go."

According to The Peters Co., an organization that assists companies with Lean principles, Lean creates more value for the customer, by delivering services and products at a lower cost, in shorter time, with fewer defects, and with less human effort. Lean creates a disciplined structure for eliminating waste, a way of thinking and acting for all parts of an organization, and a culture of learning.

Several years ago, John realized the need for more mechanizing in the nursery's processes, both for the sake of speed, but also for efficiency and reducing the dependency on a large number of people. Although at the time John wasn't familiar with the practices and principals of Lean, has was unknowingly employing some of them.

"Getting to know Rick and Elizabeth Peters of The Peters Co. would take us to the next level," he says. The Peters created the Oregon Nursery Lean Consortium, which allows nurseries and greenhouses to work together to deploy Lean in their operations.

JLPN began the sometimes simple yet often times challenging procedure of breaking down processes that took a lot of manpower, both in physical strength and volume of workers. By breaking these processes down, John and his crew were able to identify areas that required the highest concentration of labor, and the largest amount of wasted steps, then come up with solutions that eliminated a substantial amount of lifting, manual transportation of product, and processing of material, for example.

"When we built our in-line potting soil system, we went from batch processing soil  -- blending one component at a time and then unloading the batch -- to continuous flow processing, which is blending by trickle feed onto a continuously moving, on-demand belt with a mixing head," John explains. "Previously, we could only create soil at the rate of 40 yards a day, we can now easily produce 250-plus yards a day. It’s become an integral part of our continuous flow planting process."

Through the process, the nursery has eliminated more than half of the lifting and total touches required to get the container flat delivered to the greenhouse, filled, planted and watered. (See video at www.nurserymag.com/video/jlpn-liners-new-soil-mixer/) Since the original construction, John has added multiple attachments including hole-makers and top dressers to eliminate the need for more people on the line.

"We will only fine-tune the process from here on out," he adds.

Lean puts a science and format behind what John and his staff are trying to do at JLPN, which "has taken us to the next level," he says.

"Lean puts a strong emphasis on process analysis, or how we do things and the steps it takes to get the task done. Can you do it in less steps, with less movement, with less margin for error, in a fashion that is easier on the worker, while creating a better, value-added product for less? Lean helps you understand and visualize these issues, while at the same time creating and instilling the thought process throughout the entire organization. It becomes common methodology and creates consistency. Consistently good product sells," he says.

The benefits of employing Lean principals not only creates efficiencies in the way JLPN processes liners, it also creates space in their production process, so they can produce more. The savings are not always monetary, but also physically and mentally, he adds.

"In years past at JLPN, early spring was our production managers’ worst nightmare. We were at the end of harvest, and shipping and planting were in full swing," he recalls. "The inefficiency of our potting soil production created a tremendous bottleneck, which in turn created a great deal of stress for our managers who were trying to get their planting done in time. Once we built our in-line potting soil system, what we call The Blue Beast, one of our managers said, 'I feel like I should be so stressed out right now, but I’m not, and I can’t figure out why?' I told him it's because he wasn't having to fight over the potting shed, because that machine is cranking out production so fast that nobody is waiting and under stress to get their planting done. It was a mental savings! Lean can help eliminate the stress of a dysfunctional system, and there is massive value in that for the crew and staff."

Although the nursery's relationship with Lean and The Peters Group as a guide is new, JLPN's practices have always been geared toward Lean-based principals.

"The writing is on the wall that employing Lean principals into as many aspects of production is going to be vital in maintaining profitability in the future," John says.

Minor but powerful examples of Lean
Fertilizer Spreader - Then, five men for 2 days on seed beds (90 hours)    
Now, 1 man for 1 day (9 hours); Cost $2,500
Bark Spreader - Then, 6 men to cover 36 seed beds/day (54 hours)
Now, 1 man for 72 seed beds/day (9 hours); Cost $30,000
Narrow Trailers - Then, hand-carry 117 greenhouses worth of flats (approximately 82,000) in from the end at 50 or fewer feet    
Now, drive tractor in greenhouse and set flats down 8 feet max; Cost $12,000

For more: www.jlpnliners.com