Becoming a 21st-Century Manufacturer

Quebec’s CMP Advanced Mechanical Solutions pushes the envelope in design, manufacturing, and training through innovative shop floor knowledge-sharing

VKS Operations Manager

VKS Operations and Implementation Manager Ryan Zimmermann (left) and VKS Sales and Marketing Manager Kyle O’Reilly on the work floor of CMP’s Chateauguay, Que., facility.

CMP Advanced Mechanical Solutions, Chateauguay, Que., is a manufacturer of enclosures with manufacturing facilities in Canada, the U.S., and Mexico. Despite its world-class status now, the company began life fairly humbly as Chateauguay Machine Parts, a traditional community-based metalworking company named after the Montreal South Shore area that was its home.

Founded in 1969, the company was sold in 1972 to Swiss-born Hans Zimmermann, a 50-year-old former police officer, plumber, and tinsmith who had recently immigrated to Canada with his young family.

Today the company is under the leadership of son Steve, who serves as president and CEO.

A privately held firm with revenue expectations of $70 million this year, the firm prides itself on its automated and innovative production processes, high levels of productivity, and a low defect rate that is a byproduct of continuous process improvement and modernization.

CMP, in the most fundamental of terms, makes sheet metal enclosures —typically aluminum, steel, and stainless steel—for the transportation, medical, and industrial sectors and also handles conceptual design of each project.

“We don’t manufacture the high-tech interiors of the machines; we do the complex designing, machining, bending, punching, painting, and integration of what these machines are wrapped in,” explained Steve. “We also offer clients our ‘Deep Dive’ cost-reduction program, a consultation and design process that helps reduce the total number of parts, streamlines the design, and standardizes parts to reduce manufacturing costs.”

CMP is essentially a low-volume manufacturer of thousands of products for its hundreds of customers. Parts include subway car doors for light rail, airport scanners, embassy and consulate security scanners, computer server racks, the stylized metal frames for Montreal’s Bixi bike-sharing service, enclosures for medical ultrasound units, and aluminum air vents.

Zero-Defect Mentality

Under Steve Zimmermann the company has expanded its client base and revenues and become highly automated and computerized. Zimmermann said this is part of his zero-defect mentality.

Key staff at CMP includes Executive Vice President John Soares, who is in charge of engineering and product development; Vice President of Operations Phillip Blais; Vice President of Sales and Marketing Development Tom Dykeman; Vice President of Human Resources Michel Labrecque; VKS Sales and Marketing Manager Kyle O’Reilly; VKS Operations and Implementation Manager Ryan Zimmermann; and VKS Chief Technology Officer Daniel Frechette.

While this is the brain trust of the company, Zimmermann believes all his staff members are key to the success of the company.

Kyle O'Reilly

VKS Sales and Marketing Manager Kyle O’Reilly stands in front of one of CMP’s many installed VKS systems. VKS technology enables operators to receive visual instructions during the production process.

There are 200 employees in the suburban Montreal facility, 100 in New York state, and 100 in Mexico. The three facilities combined have approximately 375,000 sq. ft., with about 140,000 sq. ft. of this being in Montreal.

Montreal is well-known as a software development capital, and the area also is a rich source of skilled labor. The company pays competitive wages and treats its employees well. It even has a subsidized cafeteria, which is catered by one of the best restaurants in town. Overall, the company has little staff turnover.

“We pride ourselves on superb customer service. We get involved, our client’s problems are our problems,” said Steve. “We keep our word and our reputation is golden. We are always on the cutting edge of technology because it saves our customers money if we’re productive, efficient, and defect- and waste-free.”

Steve, who answers his own phone, knows that if one of his customers has a problem, they know they can get it addressed with a simple phone call or e-mail.

“And, of course, our work, from assembly to folding, stamping, engraving, and finishing, is first-class,” said Steve.

He is determined to compete successfully on the world stage, and this conviction is what has led to continuous investment in technology and automation.

“We use the latest advances available, including lasers equipped with dual-pallet and pallet-exchange systems and robotic welding, and, of course, our own VKS [Visual Knowledge Share] system is everywhere,” said Steve.

While the manufacturer would not take on an order for 500,000 units of a DVD player enclosure, it can and does both manufacture and help design enclosures for the most sophisticated technology. It recently landed a long-term contract from a firm that previously outsourced its work to Asia, but has now decided to shift its operations to CMP in Canada.

Steve is a tireless promoter of onshoring, and not just for his own company, but for the North American economy as a whole.

“The arguments for onshoring are simple,” said Steve. “Reduced transportation costs, energy costs, carbon footprint, and turnaround time, all with greater control and flexibility.”

Visual Knowledge Share

Visual Knowledge Share (VKS) is a computer touchscreen and bar code scanner installed at a workstation that shows instructions—including text, video, and schematics—for the part being made.

Steve said that other benefits from onshoring are improved communication among engineering, sales, design, and the factory floor and the social benefits from community involvement.

“Increased profitability through better productivity and efficiencies, and a better-educated, better-trained labor pool are also found through onshoring,” said Steve.

Quebec is an important market to the company, and its in-house language is French. However, because it is a North American manufacturer, it prides itself on serving its customers in the language of their choice.

“Our customers span the globe. We also have plants in Mexico and the U.S. to serve all of the Americas, and we have partnerships with countries overseas,” explained Steve. “We are close to the Trans-Canada Highway, the St. Lawrence Seaway, and the U.S. border. We feel we are ideally situated to serve the world, and we have the expertise and the production capability to do it.”

Among the problems facing CMP today is the misconception that manufacturing has to be performed in offshore, cheap labor markets, in order to be competitive.

“This is being increasingly proven to be fallacious. The [mainstream] press unfortunately propagates this as fact,” said Steve. “Manufacturing 10,000 miles away, with production staff that speak a language different than your engineers and designers, is exceedingly difficult. With transportation costs skyrocketing, turnaround time is measured in months instead of days, and delivery time in weeks instead of days. All of these factors compromise quality and price.”

Part of staying on top at CMP comes from using the latest in manufacturing, automation, and information technology.

This includes training its staff with its own VKS system.

Visual Aid

“Once a staff member is schooled in its use, he is ready to fly. Plus, we have many long-term employees ready and willing to teach,” said Steve.

In its most basic form, Visual Knowledge Share is a computer touchscreen and bar code scanner installed at a workstation. As a part for processing arrives at the station, an employee scans the attached bar code and instructions for the work—including text, video, and schematics—pop up on the screen.

Sheet metal operator

Operator Matthew Poissant uses the Visual Knowledge Share to prepare one of the company’s many sheet metal parts.

This not only facilitates the process, but monitors the amount of time the process requires, allows for instant changes in the process from designers and engineers, and provides instant feedback from employees.

This level of employee empowerment reduces confusion through its visual component because an employee can see exactly what is required of him, and it can reduce defects to practically zero.

“Clear, concise visual and written instructions and schematics on the screen make it much easier for an employee to handle new tasks,” explained VKS Operations and Implementation Manager Ryan Zimmermann. “It reduces training time dramatically, so it is a big bonus for a firm with new hires, especially companies going through a rapid expansion that need to save time during training.”

It also allows workers to seamlessly move from one part to another.

“This is not a ‘Big Brother’ tool. Employees will work at their own speed, and this monitoring helps aid designers and engineers on the complexity of a task and how it might be made simpler and more efficient,” added Ryan.

Reduction in the cost of hardware combined with the increase in Internet bandwidth have made this type of advanced training system financially as well as technically feasible.

The development of the VKS system essentially began as a byproduct of Steve Zimmermann’s insistence on finding the most efficient, productive, and modern ways to manufacture.

Steve, who sees himself as a perfectionist, believes it’s productivity, efficiency, and defect-free production that will best serve his customers and the company’s bottom line, and that this will also allow CMP to compete against the aggressive pricing strategies for labor found in offshore production.

He believes that Canadians can manufacture here, do it affordably, and do it better. VKS grew out of this philosophy.

“Because we produce enclosures in low volumes that are often large, we had a problem with employees efficiently working on the floor to process an order they might see only once or twice, and doing so with no defects and no waste of material or time,” Steve said.

His solution was VKS, which is literally a visual explanation of the process.

It gives employees on every shift access to instant visual knowledge of whatever process they are entrusted with, without having to dig through filing cabinets full of old, hard-to-find instructions that might have become out-of-date. It also facilitates the transfer of employees from one station to another with a minimum of confusion or lost time.

Enter the Cloud

Today cloud computing enables the use of VKS as a manufacturing training and work instruction system without the need for advanced IT infrastructure.

“Companies can now depend on our servers to store information and access it through the Internet and not worry about IT issues or server problems,” said Ryan. “And they don’t have to worry about security issues. Their information is safely stored and encrypted off-site.”

VKS gives the manufacturer the ability to speed up training and reduce waste, defects, and on-hand inventory. It also reduces downtime between shifts, helps integrate new hires quickly, and allows staff to be more versatile.

Instead of a production person digging around for paper instructions and then holding onto them as he tries to work with one hand, he has two hands free all the time. Instructions can be updated instantly. Mistakes are avoided and instructions are clear and easy to understand and, if not, can be easily corrected.

CMP is aggressively pursuing manufacturers that are offshoring who could benefit from the system to become more efficient and cost-effective here where they belong ... in Canada.