Timberland Equipment Ltd.: Selective Leader
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By E+P Staff   
Monday, 03 December 2007
With its share of work on the table, Ontario-based Timberland Equipment is becoming more selective of the projects it takes on.
smc Timberland Equipment Ltd., Woodstock, Ontario, Canada
Timberland Equipment Ltd. conducts in-house winch and hoist fabrication, and works with clients on concept, engineering, manufacturing, testing and installation.
Since 1947, Timberland Equipment has designed, manufactured and marketed material-handling equipment including winches, hoists, mooring systems, capstans and sheaves primarily for the marine industry, but also the construction, mining and electric utility sectors. Its products are sold in more than 50 countries, resulting in an international reputation for supplying durable equipment for any lifting and pulling need, the company says. Additionally, Timberland offers parts and services.

Exploration + Processing spoke with President Mark Gabourie, General Manager Brad Vollmershausen and Sales and Marketing Manager Jeff Stewart about Timberland's current challenges and successes.

EP: What are the biggest challenges Timberland faces?
Jeff Stewart: Keeping up with demand is a challenge. We have a lot of work, so we're really picking and choosing what projects we take on.
Brad Vollmershausen: General capacity is another issue; that's something everyone is dealing with industry-wide. The capacity of all suppliers to meet demand is limited. Also, project timelines are shrinking, so the demand to produce custom equipment faster and faster is putting pressure on suppliers.

To address this, we have increased our plant capacity. In the first six months of this year, we almost doubled our capacity. We brought on some more people and revised our processes to further increase our throughput.

EP: How else do you serve your customers?
Mark Gabourie: We help our customers to insure their project's winching requirements are well defined. We need to know what oil companies are building, what vessels are coming up, who will be awarded contracts. We work closely with each individual company to insure the best engineered solution is proposed and participate in a mix of negotiated contracts and tendered bids.
JS: Timberland is focused on FPSOs (floating production, storage and offloading vessels), and there are less than 10 major companies awarded the majority of those contracts. We keep focused on those key customers and earn good repeat business from that core group.

EP: Can you talk about how Timberland approaches a project?
MG: Each project is unique, and we develop new designs for each one to insure customer objectives are met. We stay close to proven concepts we have validated in the past to reduce risk, but there will be uniqueness in engineering for each project, such as a control system that requires customization to suit the application.

We do more in-house fabrication and testing than our competitors, which our customers appreciate. They also like how we participate in all stages of the job - working with them on the concept, the engineering, manufacturing, testing and installing. We even train their staff and provide follow-up service world-wide, which a lot of competitors don't offer. Many suppliers  subcontract manufacturing or engineering for example, but we're a one-stop shop which our customers appreciate.

EP: Can you talk about some of the manufacturing and facility changes the company has made?
BV: In the last few years, we were working within some serious space constraints, so we focused our effort on freeing up more capacity. We also looked at project management and our critical chain, to manage projects better and faster.
MG: We applied lean and TOC initiatives to improve the output - continually refining our processes. We had a cross-functional team working on that project, and they prepared by undergoing extensive training on the theory of constraints, and how it would apply to Timberland.

It was fairly extensive training, which we provided through reading material, educational exercises and simulations. We also worked with a consulting firm that was an expert in the theory of constraints to help support the process.

In addition, we're ISO certified and have our own in-house quality control team. That focus on continuous improvement is critical to us.

EP: What are some of the biggest highlights for Timberland?
BV: We received the Supplier of the Year award from Kiewit, which includes Kiewit Offshore Services. We worked with them on building the largest land-based lifting device, with Timberland supplying the hoisting and winching equipment. We're very proud of that.

Additionally, the offshore business is growing rapidly and FPSO's are gaining use and acceptance. That's our target market, so we plan to continue our focus on that and improve our solutions to meet industry needs as they go into deeper and deeper water.
 
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