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By owning the entire product lifecycle of its tools, WZL boasts complete control of its products. With that control, the company can provide customers with a direct line to floor-level support and product innovation – a line that is frequented. The relationship WZL offers its customers is its key differentiator in a fast-paced industry driven by results and dominated by large oil companies. That advantage, however, often comes with some additional manufacturing challenges.
“ Our customers fuel us,” begins Shawn Feguenne, Vice President of Manufacturing.“ Their success is our success and, in our industry, innovation breeds success. Those who stand still fall behind. When customers run our tools downhole, they are in constant communication with us. When customers return their tools for service, we get a report on their performance and analyze their condition. With all this information, our teams, from Quality Assurance, Engineering and Manufacturing, tweak and refine. Our products, much like everything else at Wenzel Downhole Tools, are in a continuous state of improvement. Innovation has always been a part of the WZL DNA but, as our business grew, we had to evolve. We needed to find a way to continue innovating and investing in R & D without sacrificing production times and quality.”
Growth & expansion
Incidentally, WZL kicked off its lean manufacturing transformation journey in 2017. The business introduced a process called‘ The Wenzel Way’ – a structured approach to establish standard work practices for employees and implement the‘ 5S’ Japanese production line methodology throughout the entire company.
“ In the first year of our program, we conducted extensive training sessions with employees to have everyone understand the plan and how it applies to their job,” Shawn continues.“ We tried to help them reevaluate the way they work. But change in any
organization is never as easy as it seems. We felt like we had a good plan, but after a year of experimentation and conversations with colleagues on the shop floor, we recognized the need for additional external support.”
As a part of the journey, the management team at WZL turned to Moffitt Consulting, a leader in lean transformation, for assistance.
“ Moffitt gave us the tools and advice to evaluate current state processes, identify desired results, and uncover and prioritize changes on the path to lean manufacturing,” says Shawn.“ Since the start of our collaboration with Moffitt in 2018, we have conducted over 100 internal‘ kaizens’( change events), in which we identify a problem on the shop floor and convene to brainstorm five possible solutions. We would hammer things out and ultimately come up with a winner.“ The process was collaborative and engaging, often fun. Sometimes, not fun. It can be tough sometimes to break people away from a familiar bond or routine. But
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