Cargill Corn Milling -- Team Wahpeton, Wahpeton, N.D.
Employees: 119, non-union (165 including contractors)
Total Square Footage: 240,825
Primary Product/market: high fructose corn syrup, corn germ, corn gluten meal and corn gluten feed
Start-up: 1996
Achievements: on-time delivery rate of 99.9%; selected as a Cargill Best Plant in 2003 and 2007 (internal company award); finished product first-pass yield of 98.2%
U.S. farmers are absurdly proficient at growing corn. That reality sits just fine with Cargill Corn Milling -- Team Wahpeton, which is wholly proficient at processing that corn into a variety of products it delivers to customers in 27 states and five Canadian provinces. In fiscal year 2007 it delivered more than 15,000 shipments from its site in southeast North Dakota, which operates around the clock and 365 days per year.
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| See the other winners of IW's 2007 Best Plants award and find out how they made the top ten. |
The facility's combination of proficiency, productivity and team-based excellence has sown enviable performance metrics: In the past three years Team Wahpeton's productivity has grown by more than 39%, first-pass yields have increased, and OSHA-recordable injury and illness rates have dropped to zero.
A strong focus on collaboration drives Team Wahpeton, explains Richard Geurts, assistant vice president and general manager. In fact, collaboration was built into the highly automated facility, which Cargill leases (recently renewing a long-term lease) from ProGold LLC, a partnership that includes the Golden Growers Cooperative, whose members supply the facility with the majority of the corn it processes. The "built-in" collaboration is evident in the centralized control room and operations center, which contains as its centerpiece a horseshoe-shaped ring of 14 monitors that spell out in real time what is happening throughout the mill and refinery operations. Based on the information on those monitors, operations technicians take the actions and make the adjustments necessary to keep production running smoothly.
The centralized operations allow the operations technicians to easily and immediately communicate with one another about the goings-on in upstream and downstream processes, particularly important for a continuous flow operation that uses heat, mechanical and chemical processes to make its products, and for which operating within strict parameters is paramount. The central control room also enhances learning. (Exit the control room into the actual milling and refining areas, and one is confronted by an entirely different dynamic -- seemingly endless piping, huge pieces of equipment, overlaid with an aroma of processing corn.)
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| Refinery operations technician Janet Engelhart collects an in-process syrup sample. |
Operations technicians are required to learn and maintain proficiency in three job skill blocks, ultimately demonstrating competency without direct supervision. The ready access of fellow operations techs in the control room only aids that learning process. It also is here that the daily production meetings occur.
But collaboration extends far beyond what is built into plant design. It is built into the culture as well, as evidenced by the plant's very name. Teams and teamwork drive Team Wahpeton. For instance, there's the safety team, which leads the plant's safety efforts; the innovation team, which promotes and supports the employees' improvement suggestion program; the energy team, which investigates opportunities for energy reduction; and the plant leadership team (PLT). Of the PLT, Geurts says, "If I have an idea, they make it better. If they have an idea that I can help with by removing some of the barriers, that's what I'll do."
All employees are involved in many activities for good reason, says Alan Viaene, wet mill manager. All are responsible for the success of the facility. "One team alone doesn't do it. Twenty-seven teams alone don't do it. It takes all teams working together," he says.
