How Enduride increased sales by 65% despite a labor shortage
- +65% increase in sales
- -20% direct labor (DL) required
- 56%13% · Employee turnover rate
- Duration: about 4 weeks from project kickoff to solution delivery.
The Results
Duration: about 4 weeks from project kickoff to solution delivery.
Project Snapshot
The Operational Challenge
Before 2020, Enduride was the least profitable unit of Groupe M7. A culture of blame was holding back continuous improvement and eroding team engagement. Groupe M7 needed to restore this plant's profitability and turn it into a model for its other divisions.
The Bottleneck
On the floor, operators had no simple way to flag a problem and ask for help. Production stoppages dragged on, with no real reduction in downtime from one year to the next. The culture of blame pushed teams to hide problems rather than report them, leaving managers without reliable data to act at the source instead of firefighting day to day.
Groupe M7 chose this plant, the lowest performing in the group, as the pilot project to implement an industrial Andon system and the Toyota Way culture.
The Deployed Solution
The Andon system was installed in the plant. Tablets were placed at the workstations. When a problem occurs, the operator uses the tablet to report the blockage. The system instantly triggers visual and audible alerts across the plant. The support team knows immediately where to intervene, allowing the problem to be resolved quickly.
Implementation and Adoption
Duration: about 4 weeks from project kickoff to solution delivery.The rollout took about four weeks, from project kickoff to delivery of the Andon solution. Intelligence Industrielle handled the technology, Enduride the human side and change management. The real challenge was not technical but human: operators were hesitant to use the call tablets. To change habits, managers kept a constant presence on the floor, brought teams back to the process at every hesitation, and introduced a group bonus tied to system usage, a concrete incentive that accelerated adoption.
"In my role it changed like night and day, I have all the help I need [...]"
"We were able to adapt Intelligence Industrielle's solution to our needs to deploy the Toyota Way culture. They provided us with the documentation to make it a turnkey project."
Sandee NoonanSenior Director, EndurideHandling Objections
Operator learning curve
It is a real hurdle, and Enduride did not hide it. Operators were hesitant to use the call tablets: a change of habit, not a technical problem. To remove this barrier, management chose presence over one-off training. Managers stayed on the floor every day, brought teams back to the right process at every hesitation, and actively encouraged the most reluctant operators to trigger an Andon call as soon as a problem occurred. A concrete incentive, a group bonus tied to system usage, reinforced adoption on the floor.
