Verify In Field: The Millwork Podcast

Empowering Change: Curtis Garrard on Solving Root Problems with Continuous Improvement

• Marketing • Season 2 • Episode 15

Share episode

Text us your feedback on the podcast!

In this episode of Verify Infield, host Jacob Edmond sits down with Curtis Garrard, Continuous Improvement Manager at Stevens Industries, to unpack what continuous improvement actually looks like in a modern millwork operation, from manufacturing to project management and beyond.

Curtis explains how CI isn’t just about fixing machines or tracking parts. It’s about aligning teams, reducing waste across departments, and building a culture that questions how things are done, so processes evolve alongside the business.

Whether you’re a shop owner trying to reduce rework, or a PM drowning in inefficiencies, this episode lays out the mindset, tools, and cultural shifts needed to get real traction.

 About Our Guest

Curtis Garrard is the Continuous Improvement Manager at Stevens Industries, where he leads cross-functional initiatives to optimize processes across the entire quote-to-cash cycle. With a background in manufacturing and automation, Curtis blends hands-on operations knowledge with a deep understanding of lean principles, digital tools, and people-focused leadership. He’s especially passionate about building systems that support sustainable growth and smarter work, not just faster output.

Where to Learn More

Share The Love:

If you like Verify In Field: The Millwork Podcast …

Never miss an episode by subscribing via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or by RSS!

Curtis Garrand (2):

the better approach sometimes is to empower the team to come up with their own solution and help guide their solution, right? But allow them that kind of autonomy and self-discovery to try and learn and iterate without you necessarily always coming in to be the person to put the fire out.

Jacob Edmond:

​Welcome back everybody. To Verify in Field today. I have Curtis Garrand here with me. He is the Continuous Improvement Manager with Stevens Industries. Curtis, thanks for joining me today.

Curtis Garrand:

Hey, happy to be here, Jacob. Thanks for the invite.

Jacob Edmond:

Um, if you don't mind, uh, you, if you could give us a little bit of a background of just your, how you got into the millwork industry

Curtis Garrand (2):

I.

Jacob Edmond:

and what's your background, how you ended up with, uh, your current role at Stevens Industries.

Curtis Garrand (2):

Yeah, sure. So I am, uh, Stevens Industry's continuous improvement manager, which is kind of a little bit of an ambiguous title, but I'll, I'll try to do my best to explain it. Um, but my journey into the millwork and a EC industry, um, kind of. Became a cross hair of passion and opportunity. So my background is all manufacturing operations based primarily in, uh, automotive and custom automation. But as I journeyed through life and, and found hobbies and passions that filled me, um, one of those things was actually doing house projects and building things. And, and so when I had the opportunity for this, uh, role at Stevens to come up, I felt like it was a natural progression of my skillset and operations and a desire to improve things, but then also a more of the craftsmanship and building and actually seeing a hard product go out the door for. Use in, in general, um, the environment, right? So, um, it was a really, really great opportunity to kind of merge those, those passions for me, um, which is how I got into the industry. Um, but like I said, my background is all operations, uh, a lot of engineering and manufacturing, and that's kind of how I got started into lean and continuous improvement to start with.

Jacob Edmond:

Okay. Awesome. And for those that don't know that are really be listening, can you explain what is, what does a continuous improvement manager do? What does continuous improvement in manufacturing in general look like?

Curtis Garrand (2):

So the role of a, of a continuous improvement manager or a CI manager, as you probably hear it referred to a lot, is to help champion, coach and improve various business functions. So, um, manufacturing heavy. Industries, it's, it's obviously very central on manufacturing processes, but one of the unique things about Stevens is we are a full quote to cash business cycle, right? So we have accounting, project management, estimating sales, all of the business functions that go into it. And so my role as a CI manager for Stevens is to figure out how to help optimize and gain efficiencies across all of our business unit. So it's a lot of cross-functional supporting, it's a lot of process mapping and understanding where the struggle's at, where are the opportunities. Um, and so I, I really act kind of as a business function liaison, if you will, to help pull all those business functions together and figure out how we can work better as an, as a whole team.

Jacob Edmond:

Awesome. And so you're working kind of with the whole, the whole business, all different functions. What are some examples of some, some projects or initiatives you might typically be involved in?

Curtis Garrand (2):

Yeah, so a lot of the stuff we've been involved in, so I've, I've been at Stevens for three and a half years, and I've, I've dabbled in a lot of various areas. Um. At times it's heavy manufacturing based. Other times it's heavy back office faced. Um, so it just really kind of depends on where our challenges are at at the moment. But so much of the work I've done has been on. How do we get kind of our front end. Um, administrative processes kind of flowing better. And so much of that anymore is around how data flows, how information is passed from say, sales or, or pre-construction to estimating to project management out to the shop floor, out to the field. Right. And so a lot of the work I've done has been. What is the process? Are we operating in silos? Maybe because somebody just isn't aware of where the information goes or how it gets leveraged. So a lot of process mapping, a lot of just pulling the team around common problems to say, okay, what feels like the right thing to do here? Um, is it just a revisit our process or is this a hey, we need to kind of optimize or create a, a new tool, a new, a new process. Um. So that's been a lot of my focus. Um, I'm also very heavy on a lot of our software initiatives that we'll, we'll probably jump into at some point. Um, but really at the end of the day, the goal is just how do we get the business kind of working better as a team so that in turn we drive efficiencies, which in turn helps support our customers better.

Jacob Edmond:

It's interesting because you know what, what you just described is, I imagine a lot of. It might be counterintuitive that you're, you might start with trying to help manufacturing and in that you find some symptoms of problems that are outside of manufacturing directly. Right. And, and you might spend a lot of time working in those, those back office or kind of front of house departments to ultimately solve a problem in manufacturing.

Curtis Garrand (2):

Right. Yeah. You know, you're exactly right Jacob. And that's why you know so much of a core function of continuous improvement is understanding and solving the root cause issue, right? And there's different tools and tricks to do that, but you're a hundred percent right when you go into the manufacturing space and you really start to analyze, okay, what is the problem here? And you start to drill down with a tool like five whys as an example. You often end up finding that you're really just dealing with the symptom of a problem. The problem was generated somewhere outside of the area that you're actually working in, right? So do you chase it all the way up your value stream or up front into the process? Or if that's outside your circle of influence, right? Maybe that's a supplier that's outside your four walls that's generating that issue. How do you handle it inside your four walls? Right? So there's, there's kind of different ways to combat that, uh, depending on what you find in your investigation.

Jacob Edmond:

So, you know, in your, in your role and in continuous improvement, obviously I imagine it's kind of like a, know, you're unraveling a, a, a sweater of yarn sometimes, right? You start with, Hey, there's a little fray here. How can we do this? And you realize, okay, now I'm, I'm actually way up here, but How do your day to day interface with, you know, for example, production or engineering or leadership? You know, are, are they kind of bringing things to you and saying, Hey, can you help us with this? And then that kind of just snowballs into many other projects. Um, how, like how do you manage that?

Curtis Garrand (2):

Yeah, so this is where I would say my current role as a CI manager for Stevens is probably a little bit unique, um, compared to what the traditional role would be. So in a traditional role, I would be doing like active Gembas or interfacing with all these business functions on a daily basis. The way that we're kind of structured right now, because I'm helping lead a lot of software development projects. Um, we actually have lean process engineers that are kind of more of an actual manufacturing function, and so they will help kind of steer the daily issues and the daily, corrective action on things. But then certainly when we get into like some higher ticket problems or some problems that do require that really cross-functional support, that's typically where I'll help step in and kind of help coordinate whether it's a, a one-off meeting or a workshop or whatever the case may be.

Jacob Edmond:

Okay. Awesome. So, you know, focusing a little bit specifically on process improvement, just within manufacturing, you know, have you found, are there any common areas where process and efficiencies exist? You know, for our industry, for millwork manufacturing.

Curtis Garrand (2):

Yeah, so this kind of goes with some core tenets of. Of continuous improvement. Um, for those listeners that maybe lean is new to you or maybe you've just, you've, you've heard it, but maybe you haven't done a lot of hands-on practice, it really comes down to your eight wastes and those, there it's acronymed as the word downtime or TIMWOODS from an older generation of seven wastes. But when you can understand and identify those areas of waste, that's typically where your source of problem solving can start. So one of the most common ones I've seen, uh, not only in our business but in on some of the other areas that I've been, is just wait time, right? So our by nature in a EC projects take a long time to do, whether you're building a die wall or building a cabinet or, or doing more of the actual field work on the construction side of the industry. And so when you're waiting, that's, that's time, right? And time by nature is technically considered a waste in terms of lean because, when product is sitting and not maybe having value added time put into it, it's delayed then getting to the customer. So if you're new into this journey. I would encourage you to walk out to your shop floor, walk, walk your site, and just watch, go to where the work's being done and just see, okay, maybe what's sitting that's not actually having value put into it. Because that's typically where a lot of your opportunities can just start at.

Jacob Edmond:

And do you find that, you know, in inherently, a lot of people maybe aren't. Educated or familiar with lean or con, continuous improvement, but they have experience in our industry. You know, from my experience, I find a lot of, maybe, you know, business owners who've been doing this for a while, but they haven't kind of been exposed to process improvement and stuff. They're looking, they're chasing materials. They're chasing waste and physical things versus labor or time or things like that is there a way that you go about one identifying and kind of showing that and, and more so kind of educating leadership on like. Here's how to think about this. Here's how you start to identify what really is, you know, not only the biggest waste, but like, what's gonna make the most impact for us to put effort into improving. Um, like how do you kind of bring those people that you're ultimately working with towards kind of what you know, and educating them as well as getting them kind of coalesced towards that direction.

Curtis Garrand (2):

Yeah, it can be a unique challenge sometimes because. Right one of the things is you have to really understand what is the problem you're trying to solve, and depending on what you can physically see, or maybe what your organization's goals and and key performance indicators are that you're aiming for, that can start to bias you towards different actions that you think you need to take. And so. You know, whether it's it's lean or if you're more like statistically driven with Six Sigma stuff, um, it really all starts with a clear definition of what is the problem we're trying to solve. And so typically when we're going through that phase, that's kind of the opportunity to say, okay, hey, let's slow down long enough to really understand. The problem in itself and through that you typically start to intertwine some education around here's what we think we're seeing, but have we really peeled back the onion enough to understand what's really going on? Um, so it all starts with that clear definition and sometimes that takes the longest. Um, and that's okay. I like to operate with a saying. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Uh, if you, if you really methodically try to approach your problems and really analyze and understand, then when you get to the corrective action side and implementing side, you typically have a lot less barriers to actually execute.

Jacob Edmond:

Yeah. so, you know, do you, is that part of your process as far as getting buy-in across the teams when cha making changes?'cause a lot of times, obviously, you know, uh, there's. You know, if, if o ownership or leadership is bringing you in or bringing somebody in and saying, Hey, we're gonna make an effort towards continuous improvement, that doesn't necessarily mean everybody on the team's on board, and particularly if you, or maybe they're on board, but they're on board with you making changes outside of their. Little sphere of influence Right.

Curtis Garrand (2):

Right.

Jacob Edmond:

Right.

Curtis Garrand (2):

Yeah.

Jacob Edmond:

so, you know, I, a lot of times from my experience with change management, that's the hardest part is getting everybody to agree, Hey, we need to change it too. We need to change this. And why can you talk a little bit about just that process of getting buy-in from, um, the team?

Curtis Garrand (2):

Yeah. And, and that is super critical because so much of CI is not just tools and methodologies, it's a human science as well. Right. And you're, you're, you're touching on it. Um, one of the biggest things that I always try to really operate under is. Early involvement, are we getting the right people involved with not only understanding the problems, but brainstorming the potential solutions? Right? Really doing that analysis side of it. Um, the other thing that's, that's critically important is it's really easy as you start to navigate your career and the higher up you get right for you to positioned as that authority power where it, you know, Hey, Jacob's got the experience, he can solve the problem. Right? But from a leadership point of view, you know, that's maybe not always the best approach. The the better approach sometimes is to empower the team to come up with their own solution and help guide their solution, right? But allow them that kind of autonomy and self-discovery to try and learn and iterate without you necessarily always coming in to be the person to put the fire out. That's definitely, again, one of those principles when we start to really define problems. Hey, first of all, do we have all the right people in the room? Because oftentimes too, when you're re re-engineering a process or really trying to discover it, if you're missing some core business function out of that picture, you only get one side of it, right? If you get into some give and takes where redistribution of work or reimagining what a future process might look like, there's inevitably going to be some sort of cause and effect from that, right? So, um, I think really just making sure that you've got the right people around the table or the right people in the room to brainstorm those and really understand the problem is really key.

Jacob Edmond:

Awesome. So you mentioned a lot of your efforts now are focused around, you know, at least currently software and, and continuous improvement, you know, either leveraging or round software. Um, how does software tools support, like, how do you use them to support them process improvement or is it kind of natural today in today's manufacturing that it always kind of arrives at software in some form?

Curtis Garrand (2):

So it, you know, there's, there's different types of solutions, right? I would say software starts to venture into more of the engineered type of solution, right? So when you're really, you've got maybe a process defined or a problem really understood, sometimes software is the key to help maybe remove the opportunity for error or help reinforce the process or the system that you've put in place. Back in the days that was checklists that was maybe a lot of manual work. You know, think about even how far we've come in the industry with just drawings, right? Some businesses are still operating with plotter size drawings everywhere. So software is really a way to help not only expedite and really kind of error proof some of those processes, but also start to unlock new capabilities that maybe didn't use to be there. So in my role with software, it's really saying, okay, hey. Here's processes we're struggling with. Do we already have a software development teed up that's gonna help fix that? Or maybe is there opportunity for software to help drive efficiency, reduce data, transfer data errors, interpretation, issues of data, things like that.

Jacob Edmond:

So obviously software like as you described is used already in some of these functions and you can obviously. Augment it, improve it. Is there software that is specifically for just the process of continuous improvement that is at all that you use?

Curtis Garrand (2):

There's definitely a lot of tools out there that could be helpful. Um, so like, so much of continuous improvement in understanding where to start is documenting the process. So using tools, whether it's like Microsoft, Vizio, to just write, like draw your boxes out and connect stuff and start to understand. That's one. A web-based tool to do that same function is Miro. That's starting to be a really, really popular one. That's more collaborative maybe than Microsoft. Vizio is, um, good old Excel, right? Like a lot of people still do time study data and, and process steps sequencing in Excel. Um. But then also more on like the standard operating procedure side. There's starting to be a lot of kind of out of the box solutions coming to market, uh, to help you not only capture that standard work, but kind of house it, um, help funnel training through it, things like that. So there's, there's certainly tons of opportunities out there. Quite frankly, sometimes you can almost be inundated with like, what's the best tool for this? Right? And I think that's kind of where you have to sometimes. Take your step back and say, okay, is it, is it better for us to just get started somewhere and kind of pivot as we learn and we grow? Or do we need to kind of get into the analysis paralysis sector and make sure that we're picking the exact right tool? Because sometimes I feel like teams and companies can get hung up in that side of it.

Jacob Edmond:

Yeah. And then as far as, you know, as you're going through continuous improvement and, and finding like, Hey, we need a solution here, or we need to improve this process here. Um, you know, a lot of times I think most people are aware of like, okay, is there an existing software platform or tool on the market that we can go research and, and buy and leverage? But sometimes there isn't, or sometimes there's pieces that need to be further developed. How do you think about that because today, right, everything's kind of available to us, but I think a lot of people maybe don't know how to, one, they don't realize, hey, I could go and invest in developing a solution. And, two, is that a, a smart financial decision? You know, if that's not our expertise, how do you think about that as far as like. Maybe there's not something that is exactly what we need and can we go and build a software tool or solution or piece something together to fix this problem We've identified in our, our continuous improvement journey.

Curtis Garrand (2):

Yeah, that's a great question. And honestly it's a little hard to answer, but here's what I would say. Everybody's business within our industry was built on the backbone of what got them to where they're at today. Right? And whether that's manual processes or out of the box solutions that exist. I think one of the things when you look at commercially available software, so many of them check so many boxes, right? But there's always that one or two things that's maybe unique to your business or that you feel like is really unique to your business where it doesn't, you know, okay, it doesn't fit that box. And in some cases you can kind of live with that, right? Maybe it's you have to reimagine a, a position on your team to help support that box that's not checked or, or add a team member or whatever the case may be. Um, I think it really comes down to, you know, one, what is your. What is your tolerance for kind of the investment side of it? Because certainly developing your own tools can be more expensive than just going and buying something commercially available, right. However, on the flip side of that, if you have this vision of like, I want my business to operate this way, right? It, here's what we've done. It works, but I need to take it here, right? I need to figure out how to scale this. This solution I've built. Then the custom route might be for you because you can kind of take your process that you've already built your business around and continue to kind of tailor that to meet your needs of tomorrow. So it, it really comes down to where are you currently at and kind of where do you want to go, and is there something already available out there? Then maybe that's your best route. But if there's not, if there's something that, Hey, I, I can't think about doing my workflow. That, that differently or hey, uh, you know, this would be dropping a, a huge quality check for us, or whatever the case may be, then you might wanna take a step back and say, okay, is is custom software maybe an option for me? Um, and right. We are in a, in a very unique and revolutionary age this day and age where you can go rapid prototype something. Like almost overnight right now, is that gonna help you scale? Is that gonna be an enterprise solution for your business? Probably not. But does it help you start to get the wheels turning to say, okay, what could this look like and what are the pros and cons and some of the gotchas that maybe I didn't consider? Um, that's certainly a super great tool to, to kind of just start the brainstorming power going.

Jacob Edmond:

And you know, for anyone that maybe is considering that, what, how, you know, from your perspective, do you have any advice on, uh, you know, because I imagine it's very easy to think like, Hey, we need a solution for this. Let's go build a software solution. But you know it, you go down that route route, you really have to one. Very thoroughly define for what you're billing, right. And, and two, I think a lot of people look to software to kind of solve a problem that's maybe not really a software problem or that, uh, ultimately like you have to have a process that the software's gonna operate under, that the software's gonna facilitate. how do you, how do you think about that? Or how do you instruct, know, your team to think about that, of like, Hey, we're gonna go look to software, but really all software should be doing is. You know, refining or enabling or kind of automating and putting rails around a process that we've already defined, right?

Curtis Garrand (2):

Right. Yeah, no, that's, and that's super key. So it, it really kind of comes back to one of the core tenets of CI is do you understand the problem, right? Because if you don't, then how are you gonna know what to try to go. Design on your own or try to pull an agency in to help you, help you design. Um, so one of the things I would always encourage people to do is if you feel like you have a problem where custom software might be your solution, have you really gotten your arms around the problem definition that you're trying to solve? Right? Um, because. Whether I, I open up Claude or Chat GPT and want to try to rapid prototype something, it starts with that prompt, right? Well, how do I know what to prompt if I don't have the definition sitting off here of what I'm trying to do? And it's no different than if you're trying to work with like an agency or a third party company come in and say, Hey, here's kind of what I want to build. Well, if you give them this really loose definition. You're probably gonna get a really loose solution, right? And that's not what we're looking for. So it really is like, how well is your, your vision captured on paper where somebody can really understand and can really see the problem. What I will say, so like we, you've heard the term vibe coding and it's really starting to hit the industry, right? Where somebody can sit down with AI tools and like rapidly prototype something, one of the powers of potentially working with an actual agency is them really helping challenge like, okay, well what is the problem we're trying to solve? Because when we're operating inside our businesses every day, inevitably we kind of start to get blinders on, right? It's the way it's always been, or it's just the way we do things. And when you're really trying to keep a blank slate on saying, here's what we want this solution to do, sometimes you kind of need that gut check that extra, Hey, but why are we doing it this way? Or have you thought about this? Sometimes that can kind of help take those blinders off and you start to see your own processes through a completely different lens to where it can actually lead to a much better tool down the road.

Jacob Edmond:

Yeah, sometimes, maybe some of the requirements or kind of constraints that is are assumed aren't really constraints or don't have to be constraints of like, Hey, well it has to be this way'cause this is how we do it currently. Well, but does it right And could that no longer be a constraint? Open you up to a much better solution. I always said, I went to school for architecture and a lot of really what I learned was not but was really how, to communicate with the client and understand what they were trying to solve.'cause a lot of times clients bring you a design, problem with in the form of their supposed solution. Hey, I want you to build me a house that looks like this. Hey, I want a kitchen that does, you know, does this because I've seen another one and I liked it. Okay, but what are you truly really trying to solve? Because I might know of something better than what you know is available. And that's where like as you mentioned, if you find, you know, yes, you can go on chat GPT or, or you know something and, and solve it yourself, but you're only able to ask it. What you know how to ask it to do basically. And like, okay, I want a solution that does this. But if you're working with an expert that's build software and a team, they can still leverage those tools, but they might be able to leverage something else you don't know exists or might be able to question, a constraint or requirement that might not need to be there. In the beginning. And so that, that's a great segway You already, you kind of jumped into this, but we talked about software and now. AI is kind of flipping everything on its head. Um, from your perspective how is AI beginning to shape how we think about continuous improvement or change and maybe open up new opportunities that weren't there before.

Curtis Garrand (2):

Yeah, that's a really, really good question. Um, you know, think of AI as like your super brain, right? Um, especially in our industry, a lot of industries are like this, and some are, unfortunately still are, but so much of. The workforce still operates under tribal knowledge. Right. It's just that's how I was trained or it, we retain everything up here. And so one of the key things with ai, especially as any, any company that's really trying to standardize processes, know that standard operating procedures are a really good way to do that. And so when you start to build that data. Of documentation that supports what we should be doing and why we should be doing it. AI can be a super awesome tool to expedite training, to revisit processes that. Are not second nature all the time, right? It's like, hey, this is something we do once every six months. Okay, do I need to go dust off my, my SOP that I've not touched for two years, or do I have that trained in maybe a custom GPT that I pop my question in and it it retrieves that information for me and gives me my answer? Um, so they, it can certainly be used in a lot of aspects for that, but even more so we're starting to see it kind of. Take your data and coupled with maybe a large language model or some machine learning aspects and really help, um, supercharge a lot of these processes and, and question answer type things that maybe you never even knew were possible. Um, right. You think about. All the amount of data that goes into a construction project, right? You've got the prints, you've got all the dimensions and everything there. What a lot of people don't realize is that data is super valuable, but how do you leverage it? Right? You and I can read it. We can maybe open up Bluebeam and OCR some stuff, but there's so much more potential there if you kind of start looking at it from a metadata point of view, all the embedded stuff that's actually actually there. And so that's where AI and some of this custom software stuff can really start to supercharge, you know, envision being able to pull up a set of blueprints. Ask a question against, you know, Hey, what's my sync depth on elevation A 0.4? Right? Like all that stuff is starting to become actually possible because of where software and industry is going specifically with using AI to interpret the data for us.

Jacob Edmond:

Awesome. So, you know, for, how do you think companies that maybe are, are like curious about ai but unsure of where to even begin? How can they start to dip their toes into, you know, can we be, should we, can we be leveraging ai. Um, you know, figuring out how to leverage it and how to go about thinking about, you know, one, not missing the boat, not missing opportunities, but also not trying to, you know, dive into something they don't really even know where to begin.

Curtis Garrand (2):

Yeah, I would say, you know, first and foremost, just try to get hands on with it, right? So whether it's, whether it's chat, GPT or Claude or there, you know, there's tons of other ones out there. Um, so many of them offer free accounts, right? You can go to the, go to their websites and kind of just start playing around, right? Think about, this is like Google on steroids, right? You ask a question and just start to learn like. How does it find links on the web? How does it kind of derive its answer and, and just really get a feel for like, okay, what are some of the technical capabilities this thing could get? But then if, you know, once you start to get that comfortability, then you start thinking, okay, now application based, so I've got general knowledge, but how do I apply this? And that's where you start to open up a whole new playing field of, okay, well if I give it my company's data and my company's processes, um, and really get more down the objective side of integrating it into custom solutions. In my opinion, the, the opportunities are endless. Um, and there there's also like training videos and stuff out there on the web that you can certainly do, but I, I've always been more of like a hands-on learner, right? And so just being able to interface with it and test it, upload, you know, upload a document to it, um, you'd be surprised if you go to, to Gemini, which is, you know, I think it's Google's version of ai. Um. Upload a, a finished schedule to it and see what it picks out of it. You might be surprised at how well it actually reads the table structure off of a blueprint and you'd be like, oh God, okay, so what can I do with this? Right? And it starts to really, uh, allow that creative brainstorming power to come in and you start to kind of see the world differently as far as, well, here's how we're operating today. What, what could this look like tomorrow if we kind of pull AI in as a resource for us? So.

Jacob Edmond:

Awesome. So, you know, obviously the, the role of software is continuing to grow in, in continues to improvement and AI is playing a big part, I would say in, in not only the capability, but the accessibility of, of leveraging software for continuous improvement. For companies maybe that are just beginning to think about continuous improvement as a, as a thing, they should be, you know, putting effort towards, um, you know, where would you recommend they start?

Curtis Garrand (2):

That's a great question. Um, so I feel like, let, let me start with maybe one of the common misnomers around continuous improvement. Um. A lot of companies unfortunately, view CI as a a toolkit. It's a specific way to solve problems or specific knowledge set that helps you solve problems. And while that is true, um, that will not actually help you transform your company, you kind of have to view continuous improvement more as a cultural adjustment. It's the way we approach problem solving. It's the way we. Develop people's problem solving skills. Um, so if you're thinking about continuous improvement or operational excellence, if you take it maybe more from a holistic point of view, is you really have to think about, okay, how do I, how do I make sure my company's sustainable? How do I make sure that we're as an org unit always pushing for that next plateau up, that next step of improvement if you view it from that point of view. Um, the, uh, some of the best places just to get you started. So, Toyota is still known as one of the fathers of Lean, right? They, they really helped between them and Ford. They really helped modernize the. Still what we know lean as today in continuous improvement. Um, look within your region and see if there's a Toyota facility within driving distance, because they typically will allow free tours through their facility to where you can just start to get a sense of if you successfully implement lean and some of the principles around visual management and respect for people, you start to kind of see that here's what we're aiming for, maybe. Um, the other thing is there's, there's a lot of good resources out there. So the, uh, lean Construction Institute, LCI, that one's a little bit more geared towards our specific a EC industry. That's a great one where they have free resources and workshops you can get into and all these different things to where you can just start to kind of elevate your knowledge. Um. The Gemba Academy is another one that's geared a little bit more towards like manufacturing processes, but they also do some really good baseline knowledge and workshopping and things like this. I guess the long and short of it is, is there's tons of resources out there, and even in probably your own professional networks, right? Ask somebody, you know, Hey, are, what are you guys doing for, for continuous improvement or lean or, Hey, have you seen this? Tried? Um, so many people. Love to share that type of knowledge. At least, maybe, at least I do. I don't know. I might be the outlier. Um, but it, it's really more of a how as a, how as a, a workforce do we really help push the bounds of the industry forward. And I think continuous improvement and really being intentional about the cultures we build within our organizations will help do that.

Jacob Edmond:

Awesome. And you know, for those that are maybe like, okay, I, I feel like as a business owner I should be thinking about this. You know, do I need to go out and hire somebody? Can we do this internally? And, and what is this gonna cost? How do, how do you recommend, you know, business owners or leaders thinking about not only just. know, should they be pursuing it, how they go about it. But, you know, return on investment and cost and like, how do I do enough but not too much. Um, you know, how can they be kind of analyzing and thinking about that as they're starting this, this journey of continuous improvement.

Curtis Garrand (2):

Well, like any good investment, right? You kind of have to understand is there an ROI on this or typically there's, there's not even a conversation that gets started. Um, what I will say from a. Culture changing point of view, that's probably going to be a little bit longer of an ROI than what you would love to hear. And the reason I say that is because, again, if you really think about sustainment, so much of it is cultural. There are certainly some quick wins you could go after, right? Like maybe you, you go after a process that's, um, causing a lot of defects in, in material, right? Like that's certainly maybe a quick win, something that actually affects your profit and loss statement that you can go after,

Jacob Edmond:

after.

Curtis Garrand (2):

but.

Jacob Edmond:

But,

Curtis Garrand (2):

Uh, when you think about the,

Jacob Edmond:

the, um,

Curtis Garrand (2):

some echo.

Jacob Edmond:

echo. Yeah. Oh, sorry. It's my, on my side.

Curtis Garrand (2):

That's all right. So, but when you think about

Jacob Edmond:

you think

Curtis Garrand (2):

ROI for

Jacob Edmond:

for

Curtis Garrand (2):

actual continuous improvement, um, some of it is employer retention. Lemme know when you're good.

Jacob Edmond:

sorry, my speakers switched.

Curtis Garrand (2):

You're, you're okay. So when you actually think about ROI, kind of from the cultural point of view, some of that's a little bit harder to manage or, or to measure. Some of it is, um, a reduction in employee turnover because you're more actively developing people. Some of it is, uh, maybe problems that don't impact the actual p and l, but again, you think about the concept I I talked about with time and waiting. It allows the volume to increase so you actually get maybe better labor absorption or whatever the case may be. So sometimes you have to think about it, maybe a little bit abstract, but. What I will say is there are certainly those low hanging fruit opportunities. Like I said, whether it's rework or I'm getting a lot of, a lot of, you know, time and material tickets coming in from the field. You know, things objectively that you can actually try to problem solve that you will see that quick return on. Um, those are certainly things you can think about from like an ROI point of view. It certainly helps to have one dedicated resource or a small team of people really help try to. Preach and teach and start to ingrain this type of vocabulary in your company that will really help kind of start to grow some roots. But you don't necessarily have to start there either. If you are a, maybe a senior leader or a CEO or president of your company and you see the value in this, and you're willing to work with the team and start to instill some of these concepts, maybe you, you pull together a cross-functional team and you say, Hey guys, we're gonna spend two hours every Friday workshopping. Whatever our biggest problem of the week was, right? Or something like this. Like that is also a, a really good way to just kind of get started with building the cultural sustainment side of it that's required. And then from there, I think you'll start to see that ROI naturally come through more energized workforce, more engaged people coming to you with solutions and not just escalating problems. Um, and then from there, you know, it, it's, it's kind of a how, what do you want to make this thing, right? You go add resources, there's. You know, consulting agencies are certainly always an option as well. Um, it just kind of depends on what, what you feel like is right for your business.

Jacob Edmond:

Yeah, so it sounds like you know, to some extent, one, it's not necessarily a zero sum calculation in that I think a lot of people think about, okay, well how can I focus on process improvement? In a way of just reducing current waste or costs, but, but maintaining the

Curtis Garrand (2):

I.

Jacob Edmond:

you know, a lot of times that efficiency gain one can help you increase revenue at the same time, or, you know, apply those saved resources and time towards producing other revenue or producing other efficiencies. Um, and two, like you said, there are. Kind of almost non-quantifiable benefits that's to be had from this as well. And it can start to snowball once you, you make improvements here, you're gonna continue finding other ways to make improvements. And it's also, you're changing your culture, which leads to a lot of other benefits of cus uh, employee retention, you know, easier recruiting, things like that.

Curtis Garrand (2):

Yep. You're a hundred percent right.

Jacob Edmond:

Awesome. Well, uh, for anybody who is listening is interested, you know, in one they may about wanna reach out and, and, you know, ask you more questions, find out more about, you know, your journey and the things you're doing, what's a good way for them to, to follow your journey and to find out more?

Curtis Garrand (2):

Yeah, there's a couple, uh, easy ways to get ahold of me. Um, LinkedIn is, is one, um, I, my company email is also another one. That's Curtis g uh, C-U-R-T-I-S-G at stevens IN d.com. Um, I believe I'll also be at the a WI conference here coming up in October. So, uh, if you're there and you want to brainstorm or uh, get to know one another, I'd be happy to network with you there as well. Um. But yeah, just, just reach out, right? Whether it's me or somebody else in your, in your circle or network, just start having those conversations and understanding maybe are there better ways to do things?'cause that really starts to unlock your, your creativity and the way you think about improvement. I.

Jacob Edmond:

Awesome. Any, uh, any final parting advice for, for anybody that's looking to go down this journey?

Curtis Garrand (2):

I would say if you're, if you are a decision maker in your company and maybe you're not doing improvements as intentionally as you want, uh, definitely give continuous improvement, lean operational improvement or operational, uh, excellence. A look. Um, the thing I will tell you though is. Don't just expect it's going to be a six month, 12 month flavor of the day. Problem solving venture. I mean, you really have to be willing to invest in, Hey, what got us here is great. It might not get us there where we want to go as a company. And so we actually have to think differently about how we operate as a team, and that's really where I think CI and operational excellence can do a lot of good.

Jacob Edmond:

Awesome. Well, Curtis, thank you for coming and spending time and, and, and sharing about, uh, continuous improvement and the work you're doing. As always, I appreciate, um, you know, you, you share a lot on LinkedIn and give a lot of, uh, free advice and, and insights for everybody. So thank you for continuing to, to contribute to this, this industry and, uh, I'll look forward to having you on again in the future.

Curtis Garrand (2):

Yeah. Yeah, likewise. It was great and, uh, hope to, hope to hear some stuff from some people. Love to, love to hear what you're working on.

Jacob Edmond:

awesome. Thanks

Curtis Garrand (2):

All right. Take care.

People on this episode

Contributor

Jacob Edmond

Host