Nétur boosts production and efficiency with expert solutions

The Challenge

Nétur, based in Saint-Hubert on Montreal’s south shore, has specialized for over 35 years in manufacturing complex, high-precision aeronautical components. It also offers assembly, painting and special-process services, and places a strong emphasis on investing in talent, developing skills and building efficient processes.

Two developments led the company to look for outside support. First, Nétur had recently added 3D metal printing (forming metal powder into solid parts), which required it to rethink how its production floor was managed. Second, as a member of the MACH initiative launched by Aéro Montréal to drive continuous improvement and competitiveness, Nétur had an MACH auditor identify improvement opportunities that would help it reach a higher program level. Together, these factors led Nétur to hire Talan to implement a Daily Management System (DMS).

Talan began by diagnosing Nétur’s management system against industry best practices for day-to-day operations. The diagnosis highlighted three main challenges. There was a lack of communication structure, so staff could not reliably tell whether they were meeting the daily plans. Production planning and scheduling were weak, and priority management was inefficient. Finally, the 3D printing specialty meant reducing production-line labour, so some engineers managing floor projects needed to be redeployed to focus on designing and understanding the new technology.

The Solution

Talan implemented a Daily Management System (DMS) at Nétur. A DMS is mainly a cultural change for all employees and for the organization, achieved by standardizing operations-management best practices. Its goals include validating expected production levels and identifying deviations, with employees at the centre: they spot deviations themselves, identify the likely causes and solve problems at the root.

At Nétur, this cultural change was built on employee autonomy in decision-making, control over their own processes, indicators for daily monitoring and structured meetings. Standard meeting agendas were introduced to fix the lack of communication structure. The DMS and its tools were optimized to plan factory-floor production more precisely, addressing weak planning, scheduling and priority management. Some engineers managing floor projects were redeployed to focus on designing and understanding the new 3D printing technology.

To solve problems daily and strengthen the DMS, Talan also delivered Lean Six Sigma training at white, yellow and green belt levels to managers and employees. The training had three parts: learning industry best operational practices, adopting a proven problem-solving methodology, and applying the concepts in a certification project.

The Impact

Standard agendas, defined roles and responsibilities and a clearer organizational structure achieved Nétur’s initial goals: better internal communication, real-time production monitoring and performance indicators. The results are an efficient production-floor structure, improved internal communication, real-time production monitoring, established KPIs, 40% organic production growth and a 10% increase in the labour force.

Employee involvement and Talan’s support, both during and after implementation, were critical to this success. The main challenge was getting employees accustomed to managing production differently in order to follow the standard agendas. Stéphane Turcotte, President of Nétur, adds that the investment in the DMS is already generating profits.

Nétur chose Talan because of its focus on improving the production floor, which is what the company wanted. It was also impressed by Talan’s multitasking experts, who offered training complementary to what Nétur had planned.