Case Study: Dploy Solutions deploys software at Bonnell Aluminum

Dploy Solutions recently released a customer case study with Bonnell Aluminum showing boosted safety for the aluminum manufacturer while improving quality and productivity.

For more than six decades, Bonnell Aluminum has developed products, process and culture throughout its five manufacturing facilities that align with its key values and operational-excellence mindset, they note.

It was not until 2019 that the company discovered the need to broaden the scope and improve the effectiveness of its existing processes. At the time, the company was using spreadsheets to track and manage OpEx initiatives. Each facility was tracking progress against its own goals that may or may not have supported the overall long-term strategy of the company.

Because of various systems the company uses (a result of multiple acquisitions), the performance of the individual facilities was tracked via monthly reports presented in various formats and—sometimes—not consistently measured.

The fix, Bonnell decided, would require the ability to easily cascade specific goals, see linkages between daily management and monitor the impact on strategic goals, all while gaining visibility at every level and location. The entire process would have to be on a single platform that everyone could manage without creating layers of work and administrative tasks.

Bonnell Aluminum soon began implementing Dploy Solutions Strategy Deployment software, providing the company with a shift from cumbersome spreadsheets to a more streamlined process of tracking and managing KPIs aligned with strategic goals, they claim. The Dploy Solutions team provided customized training, response to any questions that arose, and clear guidance around policy-deployment needs.

By 2020, the entire company fully transitioned from spreadsheets to Bonnell's new digital-policy deployment processes using Dploy Solutions. This created uniformity across the organization on how teams viewed and executed the company vision while improving the effectiveness and utilization of Policy Deployment and OPEX resources.

"Dploy Solutions has been a true enabler of our operational-excellence culture," said Jason Ward, director of operational excellence at Bonnell Aluminum. "While COVID affected our operations we had true organizational alignment around our goals and achieved items such as our best safety record in the history of the company, improved operational results such as a 2% overall yield improvement and reduced customer returns."

Nearly a year later, Bonnell Aluminum's policy deployment process continues to improve and utilizes more of the tools provided by Dploy Solutions. All spreadsheets used for policy-deployment purposes have been terminated and the company is looking ahead to migrate to Dploy's newer KPI-management capabilities for an enhanced data-integration process.

"When the entire company can see measured progress toward company goals, accountability increases and improvement becomes more meaningful," said Ken Koenemann, VP of technology and supply chain at Dploy Solutions and TBM Consulting. "We're proud to help companies like Bonnell Aluminum make better business decisions by connecting daily improvement initiatives to longer-term strategic objectives and goals."