46 | Delivering in full, on time and in spec from page 44 A focus on quality underpins the operation at Silver ferns Dargaville plant. Silver Fern Farms - Dargaville REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT Renewable Wood Fuels proudly supports Silver Fern Farms with the supply of wood fuel pellets. For all enquiries contact Shane Horan 027 2388 900 Oj i Fibre Solut ions Packaging 07 847 6173 | oj ifs.com Providing Silver Fern Farms Dargaville with quality fibre board slip sheets, made from sustainably harvested forestry Proud to be supporting Farms Dargaville Silver Fern Niucon Services is proud to work with Sliver Fern Farms Dargaville for a better outcome. · Plumbing & Drainage · Construction Services · Industrial Pipework · Fire protection www.niuconservices.nz Charlie Roughan 021 541 211 charlie@niuconservices.nz Charlie Roughan - 021 541 211 www.northpassivefire.nz charlie@northpassivefire.nz “What we’re now saying is you cannot have one without the other; you cannot have high production when people are being injured or the quality is poor. It’s about delivering in full, on time and in spec — we call it ‘DIFOTIS’” The plant operates by two frequently said mantras that underpin its focus on quality, maintaining high standards and exceeding customer expectations. The first is ‘Production done safely to a high standard’, and the second is ‘The standard you walk past is the standard you accept.’ If you are willing to let it go without comment that, will become the prevailing standard. “We’re here to exceed our customers’ expectations and the quality outputs we have are now in line with our KPIs,” says Lance. “As a result we’ve seen our claims from our customers reduce significantly over the last three years. “We’ve had a quality reset where we did a root cause analysis on why we were receiving customers’ claims and put plans in place to remedy that with checks and verification, educated our management team better, held specification workshops, engaged our staff on what our customers wanted and what our customers use our products for so they had a better understanding themselves. “We spend an enormous amount of money on training people. All our management team has come from the floor.” Referring to the Dargaville team as ‘Plant Whanau’, Lance says there is a strong team culture with a family approach to everything the business does. Of the 303 waged staff, 210 are males and 93 females. While most live locally in Dargaville, about 20 travel from Whangarei each day. “About forty percent of the New Zealand workers would be Māori, twenty five percent Pacific Islanders and the rest a mix of Filipino and New Zealand Europeans.” In the past the company has run numeracy and literacy programmes, in which a number of staff took the opportunity to learn Te Reo Māori, while other staff learned budgeting. Through budgeting assistance provided by the plant a number of staff have been able to purchase their own homes. “We have Streamline meetings which are about a philosophy of continuous improvement, upward and downwards communication to get key messages from the floor up, get things resolved and provide feedback to the staff. We stop production on each shift for five minutes per day to go through the previous days performance and it’s always from a positive position. We give our whanau the opportunity to have their say and what we are seeing quite often is if the Supervisor isn’t there to present at the on-line meeting a staff member from the floor will step up. Those meetings cultivate a better sense of engagement and ownership.” Silver Fern Farms Dargaville plant has been part of the local community since the early ‘90s when it was established by Graham Lowe. Renowned in the meat industry and a
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