The Challenge
Marine Harvest globally produces one-fifth of the world’s farm-raised salmon at facilities in Norway, Scotland, Canada, Chile, Ireland and the Faroe Islands. In Canada, salmon farms are operated off the coast of Vancouver Island and Northern British Columbia with anticipated growth over the next few years. Propel Solutions was engaged by Marine Harvest Canada to lead a Business Process Review to identify areas of opportunity within its Saltwater Production Sites, support the implementation of a centralized Operations model, and review requirements for third party contractors. The focus of the project was standardizing processes across the production sites and centralizing some activities to support the expected growth.
The Objective
- Process Review: Propel conducted a comprehensive review of the current processes within the Production and Operations departments. Working with key stakeholders, our consultants mapped 14 processes in their current states. Propel conducted process observations at each of the 25 production sites and facilitated process map critiques with site crew to identify opportunities for improvement.
- Develop Method Changes: Over 30 method changes were developed that would increase communications throughout the organization, streamline processes, reduce travel to the production sites, and reduce expenditures on external contractors.
- Development of an Integrated Schedule: Propel developed an Integrated Schedule to manage all the resources and activities across the 25 production sites. The goal was to increase visibility throughout the organization, streamline processes, and minimize risk of scheduling issues due to unavailable resources.
- Daily Reporting of Results: Key Performance Indicators were developed by Propel to measure performance in quality, productivity, schedule attainment and speed of service. Daily operating reports were installed to communicate results and problem solve variances on a daily, weekly and yearly basis.
The Results
The Business Process Review provided Marine Harvest with the data and tools to achieve greater visibility and communication throughout Salt Water Production. The Operations teams’ schedules are integrated into one master schedule, improving service to the sites. Additionally, a forecasting tool was developed identify resourcing requirements, crew runs were streamlined to reduce travel days to the sites, and a site support line was installed to improve site services. As a result of the process implementations, management is more engaged with the production sites through daily operating calls, enabling management to proactively predict and identify potential problems and ensure continuous improvement within the department.
