At the end of June, Johnson Outdoors said the company will consolidate all of its watercraft operations into a new distribution facility in Old Town Maine. This project will involve moving equipment and knowledge from Johnson Outdoors' Ferndale, WA facility across the country, and moving the Old Town Canoe Company's 100-year-old manufacturing mill 1.1 miles down the road into their new state-of-the-art distribution center.
Over the past decade, there has been an unprecedented amount of consolidation in the paddlesports industry and several companies have attempted to shift production facilities or consolidate into a single factory in order to create efficiencies. So far, there has not been a single manufacturing consolidation that has not significantly disrupted business operations. Johnson Outdoors expects to be the first.
Karen James, an 18-year Johnson Outdoors employee, will be directing the transition. James is essentially Johnson Outdoors' integration expert, and has overseen the successful Lake Electric move and integration, the Cannon Downriggers move and integration and the Humminbird integration. She told BOSS that she is also studying other transitions in the paddlesports industry to see what went wrong and how the team at Johnson Outdoors can learn from mistakes.
The manufacturing shift is a part of a new strategy for Johnson Outdoors Watercraft brands. The company is working towards simplifying the overall business by consolidating in areas where synergies make sense and eliminating waste and duplication where possible. As part of this, JOUT reduced its SKU count by 63% this year by eliminating 19 models.
Last year, the manufacturer implemented a 37% SKU reduction. It consolidated the top-level management and combined Marine Electronic Group and Watercraft back office operations into one group.
The manufacturing move, which involves moving four million-BTU ovens across the country, will reduce the total number of active production ovens from 15 to eight. Despite the fewer number of ovens, with the new, more efficient production layout, overall boat production capacity is expected to increase 20%.
“Moving the ovens and the written procedures is a huge undertaking,” James told BOSS. “However, we are really focused on preserving all of the knowledge that is not written down. Since I started on the project, I have come to realize that manufacturing a kayak is more of an art than a science. It's not a situation where you can say a certain boat is baked for so many minutes. Ambient temperature and humidity must be taken into account, plus a thousand other factors – it takes a lot of experience. We are focusing on preserving that inherent knowledge during this transition.”
In order to accomplish this, Johnson Outdoors is offering to relocate certain Ferndale employees and keep others on in a consultant role. James said that they will not change a single procedure from the Ferndale Plant when the ovens start operating in Old Town until JOUT understands exactly why that procedure was in place.
The new DC in Old Town already has one oven installed which was moved from the Old Town Canoe Co. Mill and others are in progress. James expects the physical aspects of the move to be complete by January of 2010.
